


The woods are lovely dark and deep

by TheLonesomeWriter



Series: The poems of a winter heart [1]
Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Alternative Univers, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Aster tries to be a good boyfriend, Bad Ending, Child Abandonment, Death, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Jamies mother is crazy, M/M, North was in a gang, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sorry Not Sorry, Swearing, everyone else are human, fairy folklore, i have no ideer what state they are in - somwhere cold, irresponsible teens, mother nature AKA Emily Jane will be playing Pitch's fairy mother, pitch is a fairy, pot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-01
Updated: 2016-12-19
Packaged: 2018-08-12 09:29:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 16
Words: 94,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7929541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLonesomeWriter/pseuds/TheLonesomeWriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack and his friends goes on a roadtrip to visit his parent's old forest cabin, have fun and make some memories.<br/>The trip's goal was to close doors to the past and move on<br/>but the past has other plans...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Whose woods these are I think I know

**Author's Note:**

> First Guardian fic  
> inspired by the horror movie "The Hallow" (2015)
> 
> * * *

**Prologue**

A pressured silence hung over the small forest cabin as a heavy lead-blanket.

The old wood creaked under the moisture pressure and light dust crumbled from the brick walls, that had seen better days, but like the rest, the cabin gave a certain rustic ambience with its age.

It was a cabin that could have been thought as suitable for hunting, but no trophies or horn hung from the walls and no animal skins decorated the floor. Photos of the newer digital date covered the bare walls and the large oak dining table held the remains of an abandoned morning routine and meal, along with the plastic toys that were virtually left near the child seat.

Outside, the wind howled as it is expected out in the woods and the night birds of prey could be heard out in the wilderness that was bordering to the house, as a respectful, but stooped neighbor.

A neighbor who had come to visit.

Despite the house's messy, but human order, the forest had done its part to remind its residents of its presence. Dark sand covered all surfaces as dust and the shattered windows and the broken doorframe leading to the courtyard, seemed only to welcome more as the wind dragged dark sand in and swept dead leaves into the living room.

One of the pictures from the wall in the hallway had left its rightful place on the wall and gained a crack in the glass that protected the photograph. Four smiling faces looked up from the frame on the floor in a frozen second of joy.

A dark-haired man with a humorous grin, held the camera out in outstretched hand and encircled the three others. The woman at his side looked back at the camera with a tired, but wry smile of the kind women with too much responsibility and still so much compassion for her loved ones, often wear.

Her brown locks and mocha eyes matched the little boy between them and he smiled all he could in honor of the camera and showed of his lack of front teeth without a shame in the world.

A newborn lay in the arms of the woman and made it clear to the viewer that this photo had been taken shortly after the birth, due to the hospital bed they all sat on and the white corridors in the background.

A small happy family.

The shadows and sounds of the house remained dark and persistent, but soon hushed and the wind abated. The creaking from the wet wood faded and even the dust particles seem to freeze in the air.

Awaiting.

It is often said that the silence comes before the storm. This certainly was the silence that opens up for many horrors and anxious moments, in which children in the night are waiting for the monster to drag them out from under their bedsheets, or grown men are holding their breath just before a battle ... but the problem of the meaning of 'silence before the storm' in this scenario, was clearly simple.

This was not the silence _before_ the storm. The storm had already passed.

And this silence was impossible to predict.

"Close the door! Shut it!"

The photograph on the corridor floor was further damaged when the man and the woman burst through the front door. There were no smiles or compassioned around them as they fled through the door and tried to block it with the nearest furniture and objects of iron.

The woman turned and twisted timidly with smudged mascara and fearful eyes as she clutched a bundle tight to her breast. The bundle moved a little and she shushed the baby below.

She hurried out of the way when her husband stormed through the combined kitchen and living room, frantic and panting, as he took care of his wounded side and dirty bandage over the right eye.

He threw around with the various kitchen equipment and tied a bundle of iron pots together with spruce, before he hung it up in front of the broken window and covered it up with a blanket – but not before he had peeped out and made sure they were alone.

"I'll have to get her some clean clothes," came it measly, but insistent from the woman. She had watched her husband with an increased turmoil and searched all shadows for the slightest movement, with increasing alarm.

He ignored her as if he hadn’t heard her and searched the kitchen drawers and the toolbox on the floor near the fireplace.

She wiped trembling her cheeks and straightened her convulsive grip on the sleeping baby. She licked her lips, "we will have to check if she's okay ... she gets sick if she doesn’t get some dry clothes."

The man shook his head as if a fly had been in the way and then continued his search. Soon he had placed all the house's knives and sharpest tool on the table in an order, which ran from lightest to most weight. Sharpest to dullest.

He ended his small collection by breaking the lock to the weapon cabinet and placed a rifle on the table. He emptied two boxes of ammunition into his cargo pants pockets and began to fill the rifle's magazine with trembling, but determined fingers.

The woman suppressed a sob and sniffed into her daughter's hair to find strength. The smell of mold, damp leaves and moisture penetrated into her nostrils and added her painful nerves dilapidated an additional layer of fear. One of the shadows seemed to move and she whined in torment.

The man straightened with lightning rapidity by the sound of her little outbursts and aimed at the shades. When nothing happened, he released a trembling breath, leaning his hands against the table for stability and comfort.

”Please… ” she whispered almost in prayer and smeared her ruined makeup out further. The warm fleece jacket with the fur lining that had kept her warm, was now stained and damp of rain and soil.

Light stains of black liquid had tarnish her skintight jeans to a point where they would never get clean again and leaves was tangled in her long chestnut hair.

Despite the many bruises on her face and the cloths condition, she was still a beautiful woman and seeing her so vulnerable made something in the man burst and he took pity on her.

He rummaged a hand through his unruly black curls and smeared the dirt and blood that had gathered in his short beard, out on his cheek. More blood had gathered around the right side of his plaid-clad torso and soaked the shirt.

The same black substance that tarnished his wife's jeans stained his hands, his upper arms and the iron-pipe he had thrown by the door when they arrived at their house in haste.

He straightened the bloody and inflamed bandage covering his right eye with a grunt of pain and stepped toward his wife and college sweetheart. The gesture had laid up for either an embrace or loving caress, but all the man’s peaceful intentions disappeared from his mind like snow in the sun, when he caught a glimpse of the baby in her arms.

"Put the baby on the table."

His wife blinked surprised and a trifle of uncertainly sneaked into her chocolate brown eyes.

"W-why?"

"Just do it."

The fearful part of the woman that had gained more footing in her life and soul over the past twenty-four hours, than throughout her entire life, were forcefully pushed back by her more rational thinking.

Believing that her husband just wanted to take care of their daughter here on the table, instead of the nursing-room upstairs, where there weren't nearly as safe, she placed the baby on the part of the table that was still free of sharp objects and began to undress the little.

The damp blanket was laid over a chair and the muddy baby bodysuit opened up one button at a time. The little pink face peeped sleeping out from under the thick wool hat of bright pink yarn and the woman smiled down at the little one that gently opened her eyes and blinked with two chocolate brown eyes, looking exactly like woman’s own.

The small moment of affectionate bond between mother and child, was broken when the child's father pushed his wife out of the way and leaned scrutinizing over the child.

The woman recovered quickly from the push and felt the fear return in full speed.

"What are you doing?" she asked anxiously, as he slowly took off on the little pink woolen hat, staring down at the baby's face. Hardness came on his mouth and his hand sought toward the closest knife.

"This is not our child."

"What?" she stammered terrified and tried to get to get in between, but was blocked by his massive arm. He looked at her with cold determination and deep sadness on the verge of rage, "it's a changeling, they have swapped them."

She shook dismissive her head and cursed herself for letting him just take the little initially. He had been unstable since the creatures had stabbed him in the eye.

He had become increasingly unpredictable as the night's horrors had progressed. She had noticed the little tics and drops of black inflammation that had run from his wounds, but she had assured herself that all of this could be taken care of when they got back to the cabin and got hold of an ambulance and the police ...

Her eyes darted from the scene in front of her to the phone on the table in the corner of the living room. She knew that the most rational thing to do would be to call and wait for help to arrive, but all in her screamed that she wasn't to take her eyes of what was happening in front of her, whatever that was.

"Honey," she said gently, trying to get closer with careful steps, "honey, you ... you're not well, you ... changelings aren't real. The creatures outside, they don't have our daughter, we took her back. Remember?"

She made a nervous gesture to the baby between them and tried to sneak an arm around the little one to recapture her. Get her back into her safe embrace.

"This is our little Flee. It's our little girl."

“NO!” he shouted furiously and pushed her out of the way again, this time with the knife raised. The woman's eyes widened in panic and her insides froze as he held it over the child, a few inches from the small chubby face.

"Our daughter is gone - they took her! They took her and left this thing to fool us!" he raged and held the baby firmly with his left hand and raised the right with the knife, ”I can prove it. Iron burns them."

The iron-pipe from the hallway struck the back of his head and caused him to howl in pain. He sank heavily to the floor with his hands locked around his head, while the woman over him let go of the pipe, grabbed the baby and ran towards the door.

Far away, he heard furniture and iron being wrenched aside and then the door being slammed shut. Clattering on the broken frame. The sound of her running feet disturbing the stone in the yard and soon the sounds faded as she fled the site.

He clenched his teeth in rage and could smell burnt hair and skin. His healthy eye darted to the iron pipe left on the floor and observed in alarm and in semi-delirium, as his own blood was still seethed on its surface.

The small hairs that stuck to the pipe sizzled and rolled up to small black spirals before breaking and became black dust on the floor.

The pain throbbed through his head and for a time it the dull pain that had permeated his wounded side. He opened panting and sweating his plaid shirt and saw that the sticky blood that stuck his shirt to his side, no longer was red, but black.

He bit the inside of his cheeks and lifted the sticky shirt from the wound.

Long black threads stretched from the soaked shirt to his wound and he sobbed, trembling as the smell of death filled the room. His sobs slowly became cries and cries to aching howl when his eye felt as if it would burst.

He rolled onto his side and howled agonized with both hands pressed against the bandage. Pressed and pressed to make the pain go away. Long black veins below the skin creept out from under the bandage and spread to the rest of his face, stretched neck and below the shirt collar.

The man, who would soon cease to be human, wept inconsolably and tore the bandage like a wild animal. A low snarl crept into his voice and long muffled moans filled the heavy and ominous forest cabin, as the bandage was ripped off layer by layer.

The weeping petered when the last black bandage layer was peeled of and the man rose to his knees quivering. The wound that had made him blind on the right eye, was now wide open and displayed a bare white eyeball.

The eyelid had withered and the skin around the eyeball turned black as night. The white eye stared blindly ahead, but a hushed light testified that there was still life behind it, but not a life any creature might call human.

Mumbling and hushed whispers approached the windows and the door like a fog ever so slowly. The man regained enough of his humanity to deliver a fearful gasp and hoisted himself against the table to grab the rifle.

He burned himself on one of the tables knives and drew back in panic and bumped into the posted camera that have had been given the best spot in the middle of the living room, placed firmly on a tripod.

The sound of his tumult only seems to eager the beings' intrusions and his breath came out in quivering shock as thousands of small bright eyes peered in through the dark windows and black hands scratched the glass.

The shadows became long and black, stretching where no shadow should be able and reached out to him from all sides. He screamed as a new wave of pain overwhelmed him.

-

The wet sneakers slithered against the damp grass and she avoided the fall with a hand on one of the old trunks that stood naked and dead on the moor. She had put the forest behind her now, both to her great relief and fear.

The forest was their land, but the moor gave her no cover and she was as visible here as a sitting duck.

If they scouted in the direction of the wild grassland and undulating hillocks, she would be visible from a mile away. She wiped the sweat from her forehead and searched around in the foggy darkness to find the best possible direction to continue her flight.

She didn’t know how fatal the blow to his head had been, but at this stage he could have left the cabin and start searching for her in this very moment.

She looked down at her sleeping daughter and inhaled her scent again to remain sane. A light far away caught her eye and she made a sigh of relief, when it dawned on her that the light was of human origins.

It was a house.

She gathered her last stamina and ran stumbling and precarious through the moor to reach the house that promised security, normality and help. The hope flared like a torch in her heart, when she got to a small gravel path and let it guide her safely to the house's front door.

She jumped to the first step on the stairs and lifted a dirty hand to knock on the door in the name of mercy, when the residents beat here to it and opened themselves.

Her sigh of relief was quickly turned into a gasp of astonishment, when the end of a rifle met her face. The old man on the other side of the weapon raised it cautionary and forced her down the stairs.

"I warned you," he said quietly, forcing her further down and away from his property, "I told you not to come here. This place is cursed and your family is cursed. Get out!"

”Please!” she cried pleading and showed him her daughter, "they are after us; they have already taken my husband! If you don’t help me, they'll take her again! They'll kill her!"

A shot hit the ground in front of her and she jumped screaming three steps back. He raised warningly the smoking rifle again and left no doubt about his intentions with steeled eyes.

"Your family brought the forest anger upon themselves. Now reap in which you have sown – get lost now!"

She bit gasping the tears and shame of his rejection down and ran back. One of the chained dogs around the house barked furious at her and she hurried away. She had reached the middle of the moor when her side stitch became too much for her and she bent over gasping and sobbing.

Hugged the baby into her and tried to come up with a new plan.

Besides their only neighbor, the nearest habitation would be three kilometers from the latter and she would have to go through the path that ran through the forest. She couldn’t take her chances on the path and certainly not without a car.

Their crashed vehicle remained hidden somewhere behind her, half mired in the mud and would require a crane to get free again.

She looked up and knew with a heavy heart that the forest cabin was the only place she could find even the slightest shelter. All the windows were secured and the door could be closed again with the furniture and iron bars she had removed in her escape.

There were weapons on the table and a rifle, if he hadn’t taken it with him. If he had left the house at all...

The fear of going back and meet him, his madness and sickness, was overcome by the inner voice that told her that he probably had left the house. It would be foolish to stand out here in the wind and bloom until they came for her, when the house obviously would be empty and ready to protect her until sunrise. In addition, she just needed to call and the police would they be here within the hour.

She could do it. She had to. For her daughter’s sake.

She ran as fast as she could and let out a sigh of relief when no one awaited her at the door. She peaked quickly into the living room to make sure she wouldn't do herself a disservice and risked lock herself in with him, before she slammed the door and put the overturned furniture up against the door again.

She set the iron bars against the door with her heart up her throat and ran towards the phone. She cried out in shock and fear when her foot became entangled in the overturned tripod and she fell heavily towards the carpet-covered floor.

Luckily, she didn’t land on the baby and shushed the little in an attempt to calm the child just as much as herself.

She rose groaning to her knees and pushed the tripod away. The blinking camera was close by and she wondered briefly on whether it perhaps had recorded this entire time.

If it had, maybe she could see if he indeed had left the house or not...

Murmur and whisper got the blood in her veins to freeze and she jumped to her feet. She needed a place to hide and that quickly. She decided on the basement and took the video camera with her as it could give her light to see within the lack of better.

She ran to the small trapdoor under the carpet and made sure to pull the end of the rug that had hidden it over her again, so no one would see the hatch from the windows.

She locked the latch securely above her and moved cautiously down the last steps to the basement before she held her breath and sat down. Above her, the whispers and murmurs continued. The sound of long nails running across glass and the creaking of torn wood, caused her to press her face against the baby’s head in horror.

She knew it was over when she heard the sound of furniture being pushed from the front door, reverberated through the cabin. The child in her arms moved silently by it and she cradled it with new tears rolling down her cheeks.

The camera blinked again and she took a deep breath before she opened it and saw herself and in the small side screen. The camera's night sequence made her face occurred green and pale, but she doubted that she would have looked any different in daylight.

"Jack ... if you’re watching this, it means I'm dead ... we…" she pressed the child against her again and sniffled quietly, "mom and dad loves you so much, honey. Little Jill, our little Flee, loves you more than anything else. Never doubt that."

She straightened the camera screen in order to level the child and have her joining the picture. The baby's eyes seemed unusual big and green on the screen and the woman smiled bravely.

In the darkness behind her, two shining eyes opened as demon-light in the night. She froze when she thought she saw something on the screen behind her and turned cautiously.

”Honey, is that –?”

Two black hands grabbed her feet and she screamed in raw fear as she was dragged into the darkness. The camera which had landed on basement floor continued to film, as she screaming reached out to her child and disappeared into the darkness that engulfed her completely.

The baby wriggled slightly its head and small hands opened and closed a few times to the sound of its mother's agonizing screams and its father's brutish snarl. With a final nauseous crack, there was silence and the darkness crept slightly closer.

A dark shadow crawled out of the dark and slipped the last of its plaid shirt off and became one with the darkness. The Shadow hissed at the baby and the baby opened her small mouth and hissed in return with tiny black teeth.

It jumped to all fours, snarled at the larger shadow and crawled up wall and out of the camera's view.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> inspired by the horror movie "The Hallow" (2015)  
> I will update a chapter every friday


	2. His house is in the village though

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello people  
> i just like to say i'm surprised how many people showed this fic interest already after the first chapter and I hope I won't dissapoint  
> hope you enjoy - comments are always welcome
> 
> * * *

Jack Overland stuck his head out the car window and enjoyed the cold November wind that swept past the battered Land Rover.

Outside, the forests and the deserted field reached the time of the year when everything is supposed to die and wither away, but for a child of the town like Jack, it looked as if it had regained momentum, rather than lost it.

The golden and brown colors was a welcome change from Burgess gray concrete and he wondered whether the air out here always have been so light and fresh. A silly but catchy pop song played on the radio and soon became absorbed by statics, as the signal disappeared and returned for every twist and turn the car took on the small roads.

Jack sighed in pleasure when the wind caught his hair and stuck a hand out to get more of it, when an old map was thrown into his lap and he turned his head towards the car's driver with a wry smile.

"What now? Tired of being taken on sightseeing by Susan?" he asked and got a dark countenance in return from the tall Australian behind the wheel.

Aster scowled and turned off the GPS from when the female Scottish actress told him to make a legal U-turn, "just find out how we get back to the main road and away from these little shitty roads, mate. And close the window, its freezing out there!"

Jack unfolded the map in pragmatic manner, took a thorough look at it, as if this had been the moment his existence had led to, dragged the now cold hand through his wild brown hair and threw the map back to his boyfriend with a sheepish shrug, "hey, I am too young to get sense of a manual map. Ask one of the old people in the back. "

He got a few rude comments from the back seat’s three passengers in return, but knew it was only for fun and joked back. They all started snickering when the GPS came back to life and told them to run across the field to the right.

Jack broke into an open laugh when Aster threw the card back in his face, his Aussie accent boiling with irritation, ”just tell me which road I'm on!"

"Hey, North! Think fast!" Jack shouted in a fresh manner and threw the crumpled map towards the big Russian. North caught it with one hand and unfolded it with a good-natured shrug.

It soon became apparent that the ability to read maps had nothing to do with age and the car's oldest member scratched the black hair in confusion.

"Listen, Aster, is this still the states? You are not trying to kidnap us to kangaroo land, are you?"

Aster groaned irritated and Tooth rushed to help North, "it is upside down, honey. See? Northern States and all, lets focus on the main road - Aster, which exit did you take last?"

Aster half turned in his seat to answer her and Jack caught a glimpse of his tattoos on the hip when his sand-colored tank top rolled up slightly. The band of faded tattoos was connected to those who ran over his shoulder and out to his biceps, a job Aster had designed himself rather than what you could get from the ink folders in a tattoo artist.

Not that there was anything wrong with ordinary tattoos, North behind him had his arms overbooked with classic tattoos and a few only street children would get the meaning of, but that didn’t seem to bother Tooth.

She rubbed up against her boyfriend and stroked easily a hand up his 'Naughty' tattoo in bold Gothic and pointed insistently on the map to guide Aster the way back to the main road, while she leaned over North.

Aster gave Jack the wheel and Jack leaned to manage while they discussed the road system. Jack got a very good sight of Aster's tanned rear and grinned impish. He considered tickling his boyfriend, but stopped himself.

Aster's mood was crap at the moment and Jack knew better than to fool with Aster when he drove a transport device. He always got so terribly frustrated while driving. The teasing could wait until they were alone and back on steady ground.

They seemed to come to an agreement about the crumpled map and Aster took over the wheel.

"A'ight, here we go. It amazes me that you didn’t run us off track, Jack," he said surly, but with a certain affectionate tone reserved only for Jack.

The smaller teen just shrugged his shoulders. Usually he was always up to a tease, play games or causing trouble, but he didn’t really feel like it today. Aster's crooked smile faded slowly and he kept a worried eye on Jack in-between his focus on the road and Tooth’s instructions behind him.

Jack had been down ever since they approached the forest and Aster knew only too well why. Jack was perhaps a troublemaker and impossible to have a serious conversation with, but a depressed Jack was not a sight Aster liked one bit.

He caught their blonde passenger in the rearview mirror with his eyes and gave him a discreet glance.

Jack stretched and looked up when a pale hand patted his seat to get his attention. Jack put the seat down a little further and almost ended with his head on the lap of the little guy behind him, ”sup, sandy. ”

Sandy blew a little puff of smoke out the window and offered Jack a drag of his joint with a dazes smile. Jack took a drag and felt his nerves relax. He had been a little nervous about the trip and knew now that he needed a joint to handle the last stretch before they arrived.

"Thanks Sandy, you always know what one need," he said with a wink and gave the little junkie his pot back. Sandy nodded in a mixture of self-importance and humility. Jack gave him a low-five and straightened up the seat again.

Aster nodding contentedly to himself and a smile crept onto his tanned face, "seems like the road has taken us back, mates - one hour until the forest cabin!"

"Yeah!" they all shouted relieved and Sandy made a new joint and made a round to the other excitement. Sandy’s small round head nodded sleepy and a little high, when Tooth accepted the joint as the first.

Her small doll-fingers held the joint carefully and handled it over as if she was afraid to ruin it. She shook the shoulder long blue and green hair over her shoulder, when the first drag had its effect and she sighed in content while running her fingers through the strands.

Her amethyst eye-contacts became clouded and her wide smile burst into laughter when North snatched the joint with a kiss and placed it between his own narrow lips.

His big muscular chest hidden under the sweater swelled and sank like a machine as he inhaled, and his pale face broke into a wide grin when the effect worked its way through his system.

Jack observed North with a certain fascination as the big guy blew smoke rings and Tooth stuck a hand through one of them.

Her grin became a girlish squeal when North had had enough of watching and pulled her down on his lap. All laughed as they fought for fun and ended it with a kiss. Jack took the joint and enjoyed the heat that rolled down his throat and filled his lungs.

He handed it to Aster, but he refused.

"No good when I drive the car, mate" he said in a better mood, but still a little tense.

"Oh, come on, don’t be such a sour-bunny," Jack teased and sneaked up to Aster. The Australian watched him with a wry grin, as Jack took a puff and leaned against him.

They harvested quite a bit of cat-calls from the back seat, when Jack exhaled smoke into Aster's mouth and Aster took the vapors from the joint. Aster broke the exchange by kissing Jack and got the younger to purr.

They broke quickly with a gasp when Aster almost drove off the road and Jack returned grinning back to his seat. Aster sighed heavily, "showpony."

Jack just wiggled with his eyebrows, "everything for my rider. "

It made the others laugh like silly children and Jack got a few high-fives with an open laughter.

Aster just shook his head, but felt relief wash over him. Keeping Jack happy and busy had become a bit of an obsession for Aster. He was excited to go to forest cabin with his boyfriend and friends of course, but at the same time, he couldn’t wait to leave again.

This place was bad news for Jack and although he hid it well behind a facade of jokes and smiles, Aster could see that it ate him up from inside. He switched gears and caught Jack's hand to the other's surprise, but great joy and let the younger snuggle up to him.

They had met two years earlier through Sandy who was a mutual friend of him and North. Aster had been put in a state-funded program for troublesome youth, when the problems with his temper had gotten out of hand and he had taken it out of a man in the supermarket one day.

As the only other foreign nationalities on the center, Aster and North had quickly found each and settled in mutual understanding. North was in the program due to his record as the member of a local gang and was only one last chance away from getting behind bars for good.

That all changed when North found the love of his life. He had told Aster that he was going to quit his lifestyle for her sake, but Aster had just rolled his eyes and made a bet that he too would take the full program, if North proved he could finish it first.

Aster had been stunned and fully convinced, when North had reached the last steps of the program and presented him for his girlfriend; the indie exchange student Tooth at a party hosted by Sandy. In her name, North had promised to quit drugs, leave his friends on the street behind and fisnish the complete rehab program.

Both Aster and Sandy were in agreement that Toothianas’s company was the push in the right direction the American-Russian guy had needed. North had even started a degree in engineering, which they all had celebrated an evening behind the curtain to the scene at Sandy's high school.

They had all ben caught by surprised by first-year, who had been about to hang a couple of buckets of water up on the top of the stage with a rope - a prank that would had made all the cheerleader's white shirts soaked and therefore transparent during the next day's public rehearsal, before the midseason’s battle against the rival school.

Sandy had recognized the teen as Jack Overland, knowing him all too well by reputation, due to the fact that the freshman had made a name for himself as Burgess high school's uncrowned trickster king.

Sandy had brought him in on their little party without hesitation and placed him gently - but firmly next to Aster. One thing had led to another and soon Jack had become a definitive part of the gang, as their smallest, but most vibrant member and provider of fun.

North had troops up the last day after their autumn exams as another big brother of the gang and take them out for hamburgers. They had all ended up at Sandy's apartment afterwards, smoked a little bit of pot and listened to some slow music, when Jack had remembered the cabin and invited them all up to check it out with him.

Aster hadn’t heard of the cabin before, but their relationship was still new and after asking deeper into it, it had quickly been proven that Jack hadn’t known anything about the cabin either before a day earlier when he had been called by his parent's old lawyer.

Jack had asked them with a light tone, as in a joke, but everyone knowing Jack just the slightest could see that he wouldn't be able to make the journey alone. Jack hadn't really been himself since the news of the cabin at all.

A song emerges clear and loudly through the speakers of the radio and Jack turned it up, "hey, it's _The Blizzard of '68_ \- that's our song!"

"Oh, kill me," Aster groaned, hating the song and Jack knew it. 

Jack starts to sing for full throat and Tooth went along with her clear soprano – soon they all bawled, not even trying to sing clean and Aster drop his concerns and yelled along with them.

-

The old gravel crunch below the Land Rover’s wheels as Aster parked outside the innocent-looking gas station.

They had seen enough road signs to know they were on the right track and passed enough residential to know they would soon hit the small village before the forestland, but everyone had agreed on being a little hungry after the joint and needed some food, regardless of quality.

They have already eaten everything there was to find in the car and the vehicle needed a refueling, so it was not like they had any other choice but to stop anyway. Jack knew his boyfriend would have continued to drive until they reached their destination or ran out of gas, but it had been a democratic vote with four against one.

Car; 1. Australien; 0.

Sandy, Tooth and Jack went on the prowl for food, while North used the toilet and Aster refueled. The little bell tolled over them when they opened the door and Sandy waddled immediately toward the candy shelves, with the sleepy eyes locked on a new brand called _'dream sand'_.

Jack stuck his tongue out by the sight of Sandy eager to fill his arms with the small golden packages, "Yo, Sandy, that stuff has been banned in five states and can produce hallucinations. I don't think you need it."

Sandy examined one of the packages, then shrugged and took the whole box of the station's _dream sand_ inventory into his arms. Tooth made a timid attempt to stop him, but Sandy had already continued for the remaining shelves and she was left with wringing hands and walked up to the counter, while Jack took the candy and soft drinks from the shelves behind her.

He briefly considered sticking something in his pocket, but Sandy had a credit card of forged gold and moreover it wasn't worth the rush. Not today.

They placed their predation on the counter and threw a few Popsicle in addition, before the young teen behind the counter got finished watching the combined grill and baked good part of the disc. He put his book down and walked up to them.

 _"Cute,"_ Jack whispered, leaned over to Tooth and she giggled along with him when the boy's ear turned red.

"Sorry, man," Jack grinned, trying to come back from his high-trip, "we'll take five barbecue burger menus. One of them has to be without ketchup and two needs to be vegetarian - do ya think North want his with extra bacon?"

The last was meant for Tooth and she nodded after brief consideration and took over the order," come extra chili in mine, please and throw a couple of donuts on top, then you're sweet. "

The guy whose name turned out to be "Jamie" according to the name tag, coded their purchases into the machine with a nervous smile and started to scan their side purchase.

Jack and Tooth secured that Sandy hadn't started eating the small bags in a rush and went over to the grill section of the disc, when Jamie moved to make their orders.

"Hey, you wouldn't know how far we're from the small village, would you? We have taken the wrong turn five times now and these little roads are a nightmare,” Jack complained teasingly and 'Jamie' smiled wryly. 

"Umm, if you want to go to the town, you just have to follow the small road straight ahead until you hit it. We don’t get many tourists here, but those we do, always end up turning to the left when they reach the town sign and take the small path. Just turn right and you will be there in no time. How long are you guys counting on staying?"

"We don't really know yet," replied Tooth sweetly and discovered Jamie had a map on the wall behind him. Jack took the first bag of burgers and followed Jamie's eye as Aster and North placed themselves outside the stations the window and talked.

Jamie gulped at the sight of the two guy’s visible muscles and intimidating height, and Jack caught his attention with a snap of his finger, "hey, they're good enough, they’re with us. I can personally vouch for the tanned one with the sand-colored hair - we're just here to get a little vacation from the city. Don’t worry."

Jamie seemed to be a little calmer now that he knew no one would run with his petrol and handed Jack the last bag, "if you say so, as I said, we don’t get that many tourists out here so all the outside tends to make an impression, you know what I mean? Anyway, where are you guys going to spend the night? One of the small cabins along the forest, or the motel outside the village? "

"A forest cabin," Jack replied and began on his Popsicle. The cold ran through him like a brain-freeze and woke him up from the previous joint.

He caught a glimpse of the title of Jamie's abandoned book and leaned over the counter, to be sure, "hey, I didn’t know bigfoot was around here - have any of your local hunters found any tracks?"

Jamie's eyes brightened and he leaned secretive toward Jack, "they haven't found anything, but between you and me I think they should start looking further north. A creature that big must either be drawn south for the winter - which isn't possible now because of the dense city growth - or north to overwinter. My guess is that he'd wanders to Canada. Maybe Alaska."

Jack had only meant it as an icebreaker, but could recognize an enthusiast when he saw one. He tried to keep a straight face and nodded gravely in agreement to Jamie in a manner he hoped was convincing.

"What about the forests around here? Any ... unusual inhabitant?"

Jamie's eyes suddenly became uncertain and looked down, "do you want to pay in cash or card?”

Jack blinked. Not sure what had caused the sudden change of subject, but chose not to comment on it. Maybe he had said something wrong?

He saw Aster waving outside the window and Jamie encoded their petrol as included. The price got just a bit higher, when Sandy returned from his sweet loot and toppled small packets of _dream sand_ and other silly snack brands over the counter. Making Jamie bend down on his side of the counter to pick up the onces that had fallen to the floor.

Sandy made gestures indicating he was ready to party and it gave Jack an idea.

"Hey Jamie, we're planing on making a little party when we have been installed in our cabin - why not gather some friends and come down and see us? We have beer!"

Jamie bit his cheek and looked at the box of beer they had put on the counter, "I'm not sure I can sell it to you without ID and -"

"Let me, fellas," North interrupted. He pulled his ID out from his jacket and proved he was a legitimate twenty-five. Jamie took his card without a word and North tousled his hair with a laugh, more than used to the reaction his size had on people, "hey, we do not bite, we are just here to have fun, come see us , Okay?"

Jamie just nodded and Jack doubted that the little brunette dared to do otherwise.

He gave Jack his number and Tooth gave Jack a look he chose to ignore. He helped carrying the food out to the car and left the the payment to Sandy, who showed off his golden Express card out with a wry grin.

"Guess who just scored the number of the clerk from the tank station?" Jack asked teasing and jumped in next to Aster. The Australian gave him a look that said _'you better be kidding for your own good, mate'_ and accepted his vegetarian burger.

"Should I be worried?"

Jack unwrapped his own burger and showed him the number Jamie had written on a sticky note, "he looked as if he was bored out of his mind, so I asked him to gather his friends and get out and party with us. I think it'll be great. "

Aster rolled his green eyes, "your cabin, your bill, mate. "

Jack took a bite of his burger and almost choked on it, "ew, Tooth, I think I've got your vegi-chilli burger!"

They quickly devoured their rightly designated burgers and checked their phones, as the signal disappeared and returned for every turn and twist. Jack opened his window, despite Aster's protests and tried to find the sun above them, but the forests barrier of dead leaves was almost as solid as a roof.

He blinked confused as an ornament on a tree blew past him.

"Hey, did you guys ...? "

Another decorating rushed past him and Jack got Aster to slow down. They stopped and Jack whistled, "wow ... we've really reached the American wilderness."

Tooth opened the backseat window and stared out along with the others. Aster left the front seat and they left the car to look at the phenomenon. A pale horse skull hung decoratively from the wide, moss-covered tree trunk. Ratteled qietly in the wind.

Small amulets and faded flowers hung around it and Jack notice the small bones and bells that hung in the tree branches above them. They clattered quietly in the wind.

"Any of you who have ever seen something like this before?" Aster asked quietly, like he wouldn’t interfere with the…whatever it was supposed to be and Tooth shook her head.

"Not quite, but ... maybe it's a local superstition? We have lots of small temples and god houses in India. Perhaps this is a shrine?"

"It could be modern art," North suggested without sounding particularly certain on the matter and Jack touched one of the small bells, "it's a little bit like being in the _The Witch Blair project_ , don’t you think? UUU _Uuuuu_ uUUUU."

Tooth shuddered immediately and Sandy rolled his eyes, smiling by the sound of Jacks silly imitation of a spooky ghost howl. Aster scoffed and returned to the car, "witch or not, I think that we should get the key to the cabin before it gets too dark to see a as much as a groundhog on the road. It’s already cold as in - _Jack, drop it!_ "

Jack had been about to sneak up behind Tooth in order to scare the shit out of her and put up his hands in mocking Innocence with a large grin.

They all returned to their seats in the car and the three backseat passengers continued their shrine discussed in the back, while Jack and Aster observed how the horse skulls became more frequent in the forest picture the closer they got to the village.

Jack bit his lip and Aster knew that look all too well. He placed his big hand over Jack's smaller and much paler one and lowered his voice for only the two of them to hear, "are you sure you want to do this? We could always go to the motel instead. You don’t have to do this."

"It's just a cabin," Jack retored dismissive and was about to remove his hand, but Aster he held him in place.

"Frost ..."

Jack looked down at the nickname. Aster only called him “Frost” when he really wanted to get through to him and it had been their thing, the same way that Jack called him “Bunny” when he wanted to tease him.

"It's just a forest cabin," Jack repeated unwavering, "so what if it's all my parents left me before they abandoned me forever?"

The caustic tone and emotional anger that have sneaked into Jack's voice, made them all look up and North placed a big hand on his shoulder.

"Jack, you do not have to talk about it, if you do not want to - we are here for you. We can wait if you are not ready to come here."

Jack nodded gratefully, but continued to stare straight ahead, "I know, but I don’t want to have the cabin hanging over me like this anymore."

He turned around in order to talk more freely and slammed a half-hearted, but genuine smile up on his pale face, "let's just go out there and party, okay? Make some good memories before we all disappear in the wind after summer and sell it for what it's worth - okay? "

Tooth stretched to hug Jack and North fished their frame of beer up from the bottom of the car, "cheers on that, Jack."

He gestured to make a toast and they unbuttoned their beers, "nostrovia! "

"Nostrovia!" they all cried, all except Aster, who insisted on driving sober, and bottomed their beers.

The Land Rover stopped in front of a hunting office and Jack ran in to pick up the keys along with North. Aster leaned out and searched the worn, but festive sign that showed towards the edge of the woods, where the mark of four forest cabins lay scattered on an area of seventeen kilometer.

"Seems like our nearest neighbor is the forest," Aster said hesitantly and Tooth leaning forward with a smirk.

"well, then you don’t have to fear waking up any neighbors when you get Jack to scream your name. "

Aster’s face turned red and he waved her off in embarrassment, while Tooth laughed behind him along with Sandy, "stop it you two, you both know he's only just turned seventeen."

"It was just for fun," she calmed him as if she were his mother and sobered up, "but seriously, if you make Jack upset on this trip, you're gonna be sorry."

"Don’t worry; this trip is for Jack's sake, we all agreed on that. It’s gonna be a trip filled with good memories, parties and fun, and nothing else - trust me", he assured them both and gripped a little harder than necessary around the steering wheel.

 _"Trust me,"_ he muttered to himself.

They acted as nothing when North and Jack returned. Jack rattled triumphant with the keys and they drove with good spirit towards the edge of the woods.

-

The cabin turned out to be what an honest and down to earth American might call "habitable."

The roof sheets had fallen off several places and the rusty gutter seems to have become home to a couple of owl nests, who looked like they weren’t interested in moving any time soon.

The wooden frames that held the forest cabin together was dark and crooked with age and clearly infested with termites. Mushrooms climbed the brick blocks in extension of the climbing plants and made the place almost one with the nature.

All the windows were dark, but intact and all as one covered by a grid of iron bars, as if the house's earlier owners had tried to keep something inside. The chimney were cold, but seemed to work and the many old apple trees hung over the house's lawn like old crocked men and overshadowed the sun in the cold November afternoon.

Jack couldn’t see any horse skulls, but many of the trees had incised faces and he shuddered with a laugh. Perhaps this wouldn’t turn out to be quite as bad as he had thought.

None of the others comment on the forest cabins decay out of respect for Jack, but still ended up muttering something in jest in the end, when Jack laughed and broke the tension with an excited, "what a dump!"

Aster opened the door with the key and the gang took a step back when the stuffy air escaped the cabin and dragged the smell of something stale out with it. Jack squeezed in as the first and took in the sight.

All surfaces seemed to have life of their own in the form of either bare carved wood or stone and the narrow hallway culminating in a combined kitchen and living room, where all the furniture and lamps had been covered with white sheets.

 _"Creepy,"_ Aster whispered and began to strip the furniture. Heavy oak furniture out of woven wood and home-made pillows appeared under. The kitchen counters were bare except from a dusty oil lamp of ceramic and Tooth lit it with a lighter.

It lit up the room and chased all the shadows away, creating a cozy atmosphere that made them all relax and take a better likening to the place. She moved on to the other lights around the living room, while North checked the cabinets and found an electrical outlet.

The electricity stayed absent even after his third try and he went outside to find the house's generator.

Jack kicked a pine cone that had strayed into the cabin and walked across the many heavy carpets that covered the rough wooden planks below. Pale rectangles on the walls testified that there had once been pictures and maybe even photos, but they were nowhere to be found and Jack decided that, just like other personal artifact, they had probably been removed by the police and they too weren’t worth looking for.

Tooth examined the gas stove while Sandy threw himself in one of the deep sofas in front of the fireplace. Jack played tentatively with the piled firewood to see if he could get a fire started, while Tooth got herself orientated in the kitchen and returned to the living room, in time for the unannounced group meeting.

North returned from his search for a generator and turned on the power socket again. They all cheered when all the lamps and a single electric fan came to life and Aster returned from his inspection of the first floor.

"Three rooms, but only two of them have beds," Aster informed slowly, trying to get an idea how to solve that problem, when it solved itself in form of Sandy. The little sweater and scarf clad teens made it clear that he wanted the couch instead of the bed-less room.

The others protested, but Sandy had already claimed the deep yellow couch and stuffed his stash and packages with _'dream sand'_ down between the cushions. The other could nothing but honor his wishes and went out to get their stuff from the car.

Jack took the stairs three steps at a time to Aster's great amusement and threw himself into the master bedroom to the right. Aster stopped in the door to the sight of Jack jumping on the bed.

He wasn't sure whether it was a good idea to share a room with the little joker, but didn’t know how he was going to make that point without hurting Jack. They have been dating for a little over two years now and spent night's together with cuddling, but now that Jack was officially seventeen, Aster feared that Jack maybe expected something more.

He knew with certainty that he loved Jack, but would it be wise to put Frost up to bigger expectations than he was ready for?

Jack discovered him in the door frame and beckoned a flirty finger at him with an impish smile, _"Bunny."_

Aster looked behind himself to make sure that Sandy still took a nap on the couch downstairs and North and Tooth were preoccupied with their own unpacking in the next room and closed the door.

Jack looked up at him looking like a little angel on the bed, but his smile belonged definitely to that of a devil.

Aster smiled wryly and allowed himself to be led up onto the bed by Jack. He caught the scent of Jack's hair and breathed in the deep aroma of autumn and the mint shampoo that Jack to like to buy.

Jack seemed to become impatient and turned his head up to catch Aster's lips. Aster let him and answered the kiss. He let his tongue run over Jack's lower lip and Jack invited him inside by opening the mouth with a small sigh.

Aster loved the taste of Jack, the same way he loved chocolate. It was sweet, full and he couldn’t get enough of it. He might be allergic to chocolate, but Jack, he could never quit.

The smaller sneaked his arms around his neck and caressed his short hair. Let a hand run through it and increased the depth of the kiss. Aster's thoughts became blurred and he lost himself in Jack.

Slight redness had spread across Jack's cheeks and he groaned hotly when Aster's hands began to wander and touch his chest. Jack squealed with a smile when the other’s hands got to the hem of his jeans and lifted the blue hoodie to run his hands upwards again.

Why Jack insisted on wearing baggy hoodies, Aster would never get, but he always appreciated the sight of Jacks tight jeans, when the other had his back to him. He let a hand run over Jack's behind and got a groan in return.

 _"Bunny, wait,"_ Jack whispered needy and Aster broke off the kiss with a few inches to breath.

"Yeah?"

"Lean back," Jack whispered breathless and Aster allowed himself to drop back on the bed with Jack sitting astride. He was about to tell Jack he didn’t need to go further if he wasn’t ready, but Jack brought him to silence with a kiss and placed two fingers over his eyelids.

Making him close his eyes.

Aster had no chance guessing what Jack was planning, but enjoyed the feeling of Jack sitting over him and sighed heavily when Jack ran his hands over his toned chest. He felt Jack lean forward and waited for what he had in mind when a flash brightened behind his eyelids and a camera clicked.

Aster opened his eyes to the sight of a grinning Jack who held a Polaroid camera.

"You're too much," Aster groaned while Jack aerated the small photo with an easy laugh and threw himself down next to him with the photo in outstretched hand.

Aster groaned in embarrassment as his own heated face frozen in a pleasurably moan came into view and he tried to snatch it. Jack was faster and pulled a small ball-pen from his backpack and wrote as he spoke, "Needimus Bunnymus." He smiled proudly and plastered the photo over the bed with tape.

"Take it down, Frost."

"Hey, we wanted to make some good memories, right?" Jack insisted grinning and clicked the camera again with a silly grimace. Aster rolled his eyes of the photo of him scowling and Jack looking like a retard.

It came up hanging next to the other and Jack wrote proudly, _'Two years and five months!'_ on the small photo. Aster examined the camera.

"Where did you even get this camera, aren’t they expensive, mate?" Aster asked confused and Jack threw it all but gently back into his backpack.

"My foster-father has tons of this shit lying around the house – he'll hardly notes that I borrowed one or two of his silly gadgets."

Aster watched him gently and stroked one of Jack's wild locks of hair, "say, is he still picking on you?"

"Every fucking day," Jack sighed and turned around like a little seal, making himself curl up into Aster with a hand under his head, "anyway, thanks for coming to pick me up. Without a ride I would barely have reached the street corner before they noticed I’d ditched the house. You know they were considering putting bars on my window, right?"

Aster's eyes darted to their own window, where iron bars peered in, "seems like they share this trait with some other people of yours…"

"Fuck them," Jack retorted quietly and cuddled up to him, "fuck parents and fuck foster care. I can go up here if I want to - you're still up for a party, right? You’re not gonna skip are you?"

”Not on Ya nelly,” Aster replied and remind himself to remove those bars as soon as possible. Jack hadn’t come up here to be reminded of his foster parents. Truth to be told, those two were better suited as jailers than as parents.

Aster had only met them once and already learned of Mr. Jokul's fondness for handguns on close range.

Off course, kidnapping Jack in the dead of night, hadn't the best impression to give them either, but Jack would only have to stay with them until he was of legal age. Jack hated them more than anything and Aster didn’t really feel like he owned them anything either.

"Hey, lovebirds - we found a TV!"

Both Jack and Aster straighten up at North's shout and went down to the living room to see what all the commotion was about. As promised, an old TV was revealed and brought forward from its spot over in the corner and Jack thought to himself, that he'd probably would have gone straight past it, thinking it was a covered table, if no one had lifted the sheet.

North gave them a excited glance before he put the plug into the outlet and turned one of the buttons.

Aster hadn’t really come all the way up here to watch TV, but it could certainly help to get Jack's thoughts of the topic of parents and keep him busy with mindless entertainment until the place was sold and far behind them.

The TV received an unclear image and North lifted triumphant a fist in victory. The victory turned out to be short lived, when a burning smell filled the living room and the television produced a small black cloud of smoke with a loud 'poof!'

Everyone jumped in shock and almost turned over the couch Sandy was laying on, when they all hurried back to get away from the fire. Aster ran for the fire extinguisher he had brought for emergencies and North tried killing the fire with the dusty sheet, which soon caught on fire to.

Both Tooth and Jack shrieked as little girls and grabbed each other while the others got the fire under control in a mess of foam and burned carpets. The all watched the dodged catastrophe, paralyzed and frozen in shock, before they all burst into laughing.

 _"Uhhh_ , you were right – we’re haunted by a ghost TV! " Aster teased and tickled Jack, _"uhhhh! "_

Jack laughed in cramps and Aster threw them both down on the couch. Tooth dried a tear of laughter and climbed in after them. Sandy was lifted from his spot to lay on everyone’s lap, as North returned from the kitchen and took the last inch on the long dusty couch.

The gang slammed their dirty boots up on the worn coffee-table and opened the new frame beer North had brought, silently celebrating their first day in the wild and watching the smoking TV.

Jack took a picture for the wall of fame upstairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> inspired by the horror movie "The Hallow" (2015)  
> I will update a chapter every friday


	3. He will not see me stopping here

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey people  
> the store that fixing my broken laptop and lend me another one for the time being and i think it's working for now and i'll be able to post as scheduled  
> hope you enjoy - comments are always appreciated
> 
> * * *

They had gathered at sunset.

Jack had led them into the woods without a genuine destination and ended up stopping by a small rocky spur with view on the overgrown undergrowth that stretched below them in all its glory. It was a beautiful, but sad sight with all the vegetation withered and the trees half-naked.

The fallen leaves ran in clusters, assembled in the mud puddles and a small steady woodland stream led its part of the brown and golden leaves deeper into the forest. The sun was nothing more than a glimpse up over the foliage roof and Jacks smiled.

It wasn’t the usual wryly smile he wore with a twinkle in his eye a seconds before a new funny idea or harmless prank had taken root in his head.

It was a smile. Maybe only an imitation of one. A smile witch only purpose was to cover up a deep sadness and a valiant attempt to find something meaningful in the situation. He turned to them and put his hands in the blue hoodies front-pocket.

He rocked slightly on his feet while he worked his way up to say something.

"You know ... I'm not good at stuff like this, but ... I can’t tell you guys how much it means to me that you’re here with me," he admitted a little embarrassing and got encouragingly smile from the others, clearly telling without words, that they would give him all the time in the world to say what he needed.

He nodded to himself.

"The truth is, I don’t think I would have been able to do this alone. It ... I don’t know. Just, thanks guys."

Aster stepped forward and placed an arm around him. Jack exhaled a trembling breath and pulled an old photo out from his pocket. Aster knew from Jack's own mouth that it had been one of the only things his parents had left behind, before they left for good and without so much as a trace of where they went.

It was a simple photo taken at the maternity ward of child Jack, his parents and his newborn sister Jill. A little sister Jack had never known.

"My family will probably never acknowledge me ... and maybe never even come back either, but that's okay," Jack continued and stroked the wrinkled and worn photo with a thumb, "but maybe family isn't something you're born into."

He looked up, "but maybe it's something you choose ..."

They all watched as he fished Tooth's lighter out from the same pocket and ignited the small flame. The fire gripped the corner of the photo and his became illuminated by the flames chemical colors.

Jack and the others watched as the fire got the photo to seethe and colors to fade before they turned to ashes and disappeared forever.

Jack let it drop and let it disappear down the cliff and out of his life. He inhaled deeply and exhaled. He felt as if he had just thrown something very heavy of his shoulders and the weight that had burdened his blood and lungs finally had lifted up and given him something back.

Aster embraced him and the other patted him on the shoulder. North almost broke his spine with a bear hug. They told him he had done well, that he was free now and he believed them.

Darkness fell silent as the sun reached the forest floor and the sounds of the night took its hold. Tooth looked down toward the cliff and met two eyes.

She gasped and alerted the others.

A doe stared back at them, shook her ears and ambled of. North laughed and Tooth placed her hands over her red face in embarrassment. North kissed her on the nose and led them back to the forest cabin where the fire sent smoke up through the chimney and Sandy’s delivery of pizza from the village's only pizza place, waiting for them.

-

Behind them the ash and the last corner of the photo fell still and silent through the air.

A little corner of the photo fell quickly on the ground at the bottom of the cliff and the fire that had gripped it went out in the wind. A small fraction of a child's face smiled up from the forest floor.

A quiet wind stroke through the woods and howled lowly. The photo shook a few times before the wind caught it and sent it far above the forest floor.

Darkness had now fallen in earnest and the glossy photo flashed like a dragonfly above the forest lake and soon passed the stream of fallen leaves, branches and wet soil. The small photo’s trip ended abruptly when it fell into the forest stream. The water gurgled softly in the evening darkness and took the photo away from this place.

The gentle muddy stream carried it with it and brought it deeper into the forest where the last sunlight was suffocated by the trees' dense crown.

-

It was a cold and pale morning when Tooth got out of bed. Her natural clock had woken her before anyone else – a clock that had been evident ever since she started dentist school, where early hours where law – and she rummaged a hand through her striped hair.

The window testified that it had rained last night and quiet dripping could be heard falling on the window-glass. She stroked her face and looked down at North. Or “Nicholas”, as he was actually named.

She didn’t know quite where “North” had come from, but everyone that saw him seemed to be thinking of the cold harsh north and he seemed to have taken a likening to the nickname. North had once revealed to her that he might have been born in Siberia, but couldn’t remember more about the place than his three-year brain could recall.

His bond to Russia was only though blood and family, and all the traditions and language he knew was either lost when his parents decreased or transformed into some American fusion celebrations and way of speaking, his aunt had to be blamed for.

The only other connection he had ever had with the old harsh land was what he had gained from his other Russian-American friends or gang members. But all that was behind him now.

Tooth always felt a sting of pride knowing it was her who had brought him out of gang criminality.

That it was her love and trusting hand that had gotten him back on track, made him realize what he wanted in life and got him back from wherever future gangs lead their victims to.

She kissed his cheek and pulled the covers a little higher, in order to cover his bare legs and chest. He had a silly habit of kicking his sheets off and she traced a finger over his naked skin.

Just as his arms, his collarbone was covered in tattoos and although they made it difficult for North to get through a job interview, she couldn’t imagine him without them. She knew every tattoo by heart and decided to get one when they were married.

North had already plans of moving a business to Dubai near her family when she finished her dentistry education. They would go there to inspect the competition this summer and she had planned to introduce him to her parents Rashmi and Haroom.

Her parents already knew everything there was to know about North from the photos and Skype conversations they had shared and Tooth’s older sister Vanish was more than excited to meet her boyfriend and fiancé. No, Tooth wasn’t afraid to bring North home to India.

Her parents would understand and respect her choice.

And North’s plan wasn’t just a shot in the dark either. He had thought it all through and with the help of his roommate Phil; they'd gotten a business kickstarted and started the production of their environmentally friendly toy brand.

She was in a light mood, despite the dreary weather, as she dressed herself in a light red sari and made her way down to the kitchen. Sandy was still heavily asleep on the couch, almost completely hidden under the many layers of quilts and blankets, but it was a common sight for all of them and the fact that Sandy was still asleep, just meant that the couch was to his likening.

Tooth decided to make omelets, toast and bacon. The radio was blaring, but decent and she danced around a bit to an old pop song, while she placed toast in the toaster and found a plastic bowl she could beat the eggs in. She added a little chili and mushrooms when nobody watched.

The omelets were well underway when heavy footsteps could be heard on the stairs and North arrived in nothing but pajama pants and kisses her behind the ear. She giggled, as his stubbles tickled her and she let him hold around her from behind, while she worked on the gas stove.

"Smells good," said his in a soft hum and she smiled.

"Now we just need to wake the rest of the house - do you think it’s possible?"

"If it is just half as difficult as to understand word your older sister is saying over skype, then I think we won’t have any luck until lunch."

He looked out the window, where the weather seemed to clear up a bit, Tooth followed his gaze with a soft voice," I was just thinking on our trip to Dubai."

She could feel he smiled behind her, "yes, you will probably have to teach me how to cook before we go – I get to work at home and you're going to be leaving poor me in the morning. I would be bad housewife, if I cannot even make breakfast."

She gave him grinningly an elbow in the stomach and he hugged her to keep her arms in place. "I mean it," he insisted, "I can’t do anything other than bacon, fruitcakes and biscuits. What will your parents say?"

"They will say I made a good choice," she replied and kissed him before she stuck a piece of toast into his mouth, "I'll wake the others."

North chewed his toast with an acknowledging nod, recognizing her good cooking skills and lean on the kitchen counters, while she tried to get some life into Sandy with a breakfast plate.

"But it is going to be computer work the first while. Phil has got the website up and running, but the business itself will first arrive at the street scene when the sales rises. If we want to be successful, Dubai is probably the best place to start business."

He made a thoughtful gaze and caught her before she reached the stairs, "but if you'd rather stay and extend your education, it can wait along with our plans for Dubai, Tooth. You know that right?"

"North," she began, but he beat here to it with something that could resemble shame on his face.

"I know I'm too old for you, but –"

She stopped him with a kiss and forced him to look into her eyes. They had had this conversation before and she would have none of it now.

"North – love, I like the plan as it is, okay? Just wake up the boys and eat your toast. Then you’re sweet."

"Yes _Mom_ ," he replied teasingly and got a slap on his pajamas-clad behind as she walked back to the kitchen. North went up the stairs and found both Aster and Jack sleeping heavily, limps tangled into each other. He decided that they could use a little light and opened the curtains.

Both groaned in protest and empty threats as the light poured in and woke them effectively.

They arrived sleepy and morning tired, but dressed, for breakfast and Sandy whistling at their tousled hair.

"Shut up, Sanderson," Aster muttered and grabbed a plate of food.

Sandy just smiled and ate one of the small _dream sand_ packages they had bought at the gas station. The candy sparkled and sputtered when it came in contact with his tongue and was almost too sour to eat, but he was already hooked. Sandy often got hooked on things. Friends, candy, hash ...

As the group’s stoner, pothead, junkie – you name it – he was often unfocused and sleepy, but in many ways he was the smiling and jovial glue that held the little bunch of people together. His family was one of the richest businesses in New York, which gave him money and loose rein to do as he pleased and when he pleased.

His father didn’t exactly approve of his lifestyle, but nor did he expected anything from him. Mr. Lunar, CEO and man in his own million-concern and billion companies, had plenty of sons born before and better suited to managing his empire than Sandy and it suited the blonde just fine.

It gave him all the time he needed to enjoy life, hanging out with his friends in high school and leisure. Sandy had met Aster and North when his mother had sent him to rehab and it had created an unbreakable friendship between the three.

Sandy was used to having loose friends, who only hang out with him to get influence with his father, his endless storage of pot or ride along on Sandy’s golden money carpet, but neither North or Aster had demanded anything like that, nor seemed interested in his family liaisons.

They were two simple, but good guys, who just need something to hold onto in life. Sandy had decided to pay their friendship back tenfold, by expanding their social circle in search for the two guys special someones and found Toothiana in his father phonebook.

They had hung out at one of his father’s charity parties once and he had soon invited her to stay at his place and finish her education there. Sandy really liked Tooth. She was a sensitive, but tough girl, who wasn’t afraid of anybody and more than willing to see the best in even the worst.

Sandy had introduced her to North and known it was chemistry at first sight. North had quickly turned his whole life around to become what Tooth deserved and Sandy had been more than satisfied to observed from the sideline as North got out of his addiction and gang activities.

Three had become four, which was good enough for Sandy – the more the merrier – but it soon became clear that Aster had problems. He had received treatment for his anger incidents and dangerous temperament, but even Sandy could see that treatment wasn't enough to help a guy like Aster.

The Australian needed someone who could keep him busy, if not saving him from drowning in his own antisocial hell and actually convinces him to leave the cave his apartment had become. The hermit needed someone who could keep him going and could get on his nerves without being scared away when he snapped.

Someone who wouldn’t leave when Aster had his anger periods, or end up getting scared away because of his temper.

A difficult match to find when Aster was gay as well.

Sandy had almost given up when they had encountered Jackson Overland. Jack had just laughed at Aster, when the Australian had called his prank on the cheerleader’s behalf childish and Sandy had seen the sun rise. Jack was an unscrupulous joker who always knew how to get the party started wherever he went and how to get even the sourest people to loosen up.

The rumor said that Jack had never been afraid of a challenge and that he possessed a special talent to soften all who came after him, when he had come to step on their toes. Sandy knew it was fate when he also remembered that Jack was gay.

Sandy lit a joint, watching his little gang from his seat on the couch. They started making pancakes and Jack carved a face into his and goofed around Aster, to North and Tooth's great amusement.

Sandy went up to join them and shared his joint. He knew it wasn't particularly nice to regard his friends as a personal project, or keep them close to him with hash, but pot was only addictive in very few cases as in his own, and his friends weren’t with him because they were addicted, but because they liked him.

The hash helped of course - he gave it to them for free and held them close to him with the joyful existence that marijuana gave people, but it was their friendship that counted.

He liked his crew. He liked to see them succeed and although he never spoke, they seemed to know it. He knew they would soon grow out of teenhood and spread for all winds, but he liked to get the most of it and fear for the future later.

North patted him on the back and Jack gave him the pancake he had just turned.

“Is it me or does this flapjack look like Jack,” Aster asked with humor as his boyfriends ruined another pancake and Jack turned his burned pancake over. 

"You’re a flapjack – Sandy tell him.” Sandy grinned and Jack gave him the new pancake, “you said it, Sandy.”

They continued to fool around until Jack turned his pancake too eagerly and got it stuck to the ceiling. Aster took a chair and North decided to breakfast/brunch was over.

"Okay no more wishy washy, Jack and I found out that the estate agent will come and take look at the cabin in a week, so we will have to fix this place up a bit, if Jack is to get something of it. "

The others agreed without protest and North clapped his hands together, "okay, I think we allocate some work tasks and see how far we get. Aster, examine what paint, wood varnish or else we have to buy tomorrow when we go to the village. Jack, you remove the bars on the windows. Tooth, you see what is worth keeping around here and I move the furniture out to shed – Sandy, you provide refreshments for all and see what you want to make for dinner, yes?"

They made a ring with his hands on top of each other and made a short battlecry before they moved on to their own tasks.

Jack went as North had instructions to find a ladder and tools, while Aster went out to examine the cabin exterior condition. He already knew that the rooms upstairs needed a new layer of paint and examined one of the windows where the old paint had started to peel off.

Tooth moved around Sandy who went into the kitchen and began her own work by collecting house trinkets together. North lifted one of the armchairs as weighed it nothing and carried it out through the door. Tooth shook her head in simply amazement and examined the carpets.

Some of them seemed to be of some local crafts, while others looked like imitations of Persian carpets. She rolled the loose ones together, removed the one they had burned during the (haunted – uhh!) TV incident and threw them out or stored for later, till after she had had a chance to clean them.

She reached for the biggest and last one in the middle of the living room, but discovered that it wouldn’t let go of the floor. She tugged tentatively at a corner and made a confused face. North returned and saw her fight with the carpet.

"Just let it be, Tooth. It is probably one of those rugs people glue to the planks. My old polish neighbor had such a rug."

Tooth let go of the rug, but kept watching it with clear confusion. It wasn’t even placed straight on the floor or seemed to match any corners, "why would anyone glue a rug to the floor like that? "

North made an embarrassing expression as if he was recalling something unpleasant, "well, sometimes people just like their carpet to stay where they are and other times ... you glue the carpet to the floor to cover up a stain that cannot be removed by planer."

Tooth wasn’t sure whether North was referring to a stain as a 'stain' or blood and decided to let it be. She shrugged, "okay, I can’t really do anything about a stain like that and the carpet actually looks good enough as it is. Do you think it's authentic?"

-

Aster stroked the cabin's outside wood frames and continued on to the bricks, with increasing amazement.

He ended up with a hand on one of the window lists and rubbed his thumb and forefinger against each other. His hand had been smudged by a black type of dust that seemed to cover everything like a light film.

He sniffed it and found a slight smell of mold ... and maybe ashes? He looked around to see if anyone was looking and tasted it. He lifted surprised an eyebrow when a sweet taste filled his mouth. Was it something chemically?

He examined the grass, but it was too wet to prove anything and he moved on toward the small shed bordering the cabin.

The old room was overloaded with floating dust particles, but none of them were particularly black or looked like ashes. All the surfaces though.... Aster made a handprint on the old bench and watched the cabin humming generator.

North had clearly poured petrol in it last night and a half-filled jerry can was ready to fuel it again later today.

The many cables attached to the generator pulled long streaks in the black dust that covered the dirt floor and Aster could hear it crunch under his combat boots. Was it dust or sand now?

He found more on the walls and it led him to the shed’s fuse box. He opened it curiously and found no cobwebs or white dust as expected, but more black sand. Aster had never seen such a phenomenon before and he of all people should know stuff like this.

The long periods of drought in Australia's wilds had a special way of moving dust and sand, bringing it everywhere and settle on everything – but this was no dry desert or Western Australia. This was a forest. A moist and muggy forest, just to make it more confusing.

What made this type of dust?

His thoughts were led back to his surroundings when he overturned a pile of iron pipe and an old tarpaulin slid to the side. Aster blinked when an old tractor tire appeared. A strong noose hung from the rubber wheel and that gave Aster an idea.

Jack was well under way to the first rows of bars of his and Aster's bedroom when he heard Aster whistle.

Jack threw the two bars into the wheelbarrow below him and placed the tool in the belt he had found in the toolshed, before he climbed down. He found Aster on the other side of the house near one of the old trees and he seemed to glow with anticipation.

Jack walked up to him and followed the Australian’s glance. A tractor wheel of rubber, hang from the tree thickest branch and swung easily as the wind. Jack brightened up like the sun over Antarctica and ran ecstatic the rest of the way to him.

Aster led him to the wheel and started to push. Jack laughed and helped to gain more height and they soon lost themselves in their games.

Both were too preoccupied with their own joy, to notice the doe at the edge of the woods. Its dark eyes followed the two people attentively. At once it turned both its ear to the left where a disturbance had made a branch break. It ran as fast as it could.

It didn’t get far.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> inspired by the horror movie "The Hallow" (2015)  
> I will update a chapter every friday


	4. To watch his woods fill up with snow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alright the borrowed laptop broke down...i think it's like with those guys that can't touch a plant without killing it - im kinda like that with technology, yeah.  
> fortunate for me the store told me it couldn't have been my fault and lent me another one - i love second chances - wish me luck that i don't kill this one to  
> hope you enjoy - comments are more than welcome
> 
> * * *

All of them had taken a break to behold their finished work.

The cabin was bathed in the sun's last rays and reflected the light in the now abraded and bar-less windows. All the surfaces had been hosed down to made ready for the paint and the cabin's wood-frames seemed cleaner and the bricks brighter, now that all the black dust had been swept away.

The worst of the forest overhang branches and thorns had been cut down and the tire-swing delivered something homey and sweet to the garden in its own raw manner. All the surfaces shone freshly and inviting – everything just seemed far more residential than previously.

Even the small shed seemed cozy.

"Otlichno. Maybe we should celebrate it," North said well satisfied with the day's work and emptied the beer he had been drinking. They have all taken a step back to look at their work and unbuttoned refreshments and Sandy had remained faithful to his role as their Water-boy and dumped their beer cans in a bucket of ice from the freezer.

He nodded allegedly in response to North's proposal and Jack smiled, "sounds like a plan. We can celebrate another party for the inside of the cabin when it’s done."

Aster pushed Jack's hood down over his head and Jack beat his hands away with a smirk. Jack couldn’t help it. He loved parties and the more the better.

"We promised Jamie and his friends a party," Tooth added cheerily and clapped her hands in a sudden impulse, "we could drive up to the village and have a pre-party there and then finish it off here. It would be like a barbecue."

Aster hummed, "just without the grill - I have searched the shed and there’s no trace of anything that resembles a bloody grill. It’s as if all iron around here’s either rusted or torn apart."

"I’ll call them!” Jack shouted back to them. He had already left the group long before any of them had had a chance to notice and picked up his phone in the living room. He searched for the spot on the site that had the most signal and found that he had two lines if he placed himself in front of the cabin, stood on one leg and placed his hand on door’s iron handle – all at the same time.

Weird.

Jamie took his phone at the second attempt and sounded to be in a place with a TV in the background, _"Jamie, here."_

"Hey, man – it’s me, Jack. We talked about throwing a party when we met on the tank station, remember?"

 _"Oh, yeah,"_ came it enthusiastic from Jamie at the other end, _"I just thought you guys were joking – but okay! I gather my people and you gather yours, where would you guys meet?"_

"Is there a place in the village where we can hang out and maybe get something to eat?" Jack asked, not quite familiar with the party procedure, when it came to village teens living by the woods. Who knew what they found suitable for festive place up here?

The local graveyard, perhaps?

A clearing?

A hollow tree?

A gingerbread house?

Eh?

_"You could come to the pub and meet us there,"_ Jamie suggested, _"they have great food and music in the evenings. We could start there and see what happens."_

"The pub?" Jack asked in a mixture of confusion and humor. Jack didn’t think he had ever been in a pub or seen one with his own two eyes for that matter. Wasn’t a pub something English or Irish people went to, when they wanted to drink after work and share war-stories?

But okay one time could gladly be the first, "Okay, sounds good. "

Jamie sounded a little embarrassed, _"but i-if you guys rather meet somewhere else –"_

"Hey, hey, slow down! – The pub sounds super, dude. You bring the mood; I bring the people,” Jack retorted, wondering what they served at a pub. His thoughts had already run away to a spectacle of boiled meat and potatoes, when he missed the next and pulled back to the present moment, "come again?"

_"You live in one of those forest cabins, right? "_

"Yes? "

Jamie hesitated, but then sounded very insistent, _"do you have a horse skull up near the cabin? "_

Jack had no idea where this was going and thought maybe Jamie was about to crack a joke, "not that I know of – you people sure love those things up here. Where do you get all those horses from exactly?"

_"Just get one up as fast as possible. You can get one from my house as a starter. It let them know you won’t break the peace."_

Jack blinked. Was this guy for real? "them? Who _them?_ "

Jamie hung up and Jack looked down at the phone with a confused frown. Half expecting Jamie to call him again with laughter and say something like "got Ya!" or "November-fool!" or something else just as insane but reasonable, but nothing happened.

Jack decided it had to be the local version of prank calling and pitied the village teens. If this was the funniest thing they could come up with around here, he'd better take care of them tonight and help them into something more modern entertainment.

But seriously, where did they get all those horse heads from? Did the pub serve horse meat? Jack hoped it wasn’t the case and went back to the others.

He found Sandy and Tooth watching from the garden, as Aster and North carried the burned TV from the living room and over to the two green containers by the road.

Both males shared an unsure gaze as they were to judge whether the TV should be thrown into the combustible or recyclable container and ended up just throwing it in the first. Who cared?

"Jamie told us to meet them at the pub," Jack said as he reached them and North made a large grin.

"The pub? That I have to see – okay, ten minutes to get ready in and ten minutes to the village. The time starts now so get ready – I’m not waiting for slowpokes!"

Tooth ran into the cabin to take the fastest shower she had ever taken in her life and Aster had to wake up Sandy, who had fallen asleep upright while the others had discussed whether a TV should be dismantled or disposed of as an intact object. Sandy blinked sleepy and showed with a thumbs up that he was ready for anything.

North rushed them while they got ready and Tooth’s hair was still damp when they finally got squeezed together in the Land Rover after ten minutes precise. North reached the front seat before Aster and the Australian turned deadly pale. Tried his best to persuade him to give up the wheel again.

”Come on, North, I like to get to that village in one piece.”

“Just let him,” Tooth whispered with a soothing voice that didn’t fool the Australia for a second.

“Bloody oath I’m not! With him behind the wheel, we’ll be lucky if get there without scratches or get crook as drunken sheep!”

“Ha!” North laughed, “the more talk, the faster I drive us there. You are taking up the time, Aster, and if you keep up, I will have to outrace the past two minutes!”

Tooth giggled and Aster gave her an angry look. She just smiled sheepish with raised shoulders and slipped around him before he could protest. Aster scowled as she snatched the last seat in front and he crawled muttering in beside Sandy and Jack, who rushed to buckle their seat belts.

More than familiar with North’s style of driving.

Tooth squealed fearfully as North almost broken the gearlever and pressed the throttle. They shot forward like a rocket and blew several of the courtyard stones up on the house wall, as the wheels screeched under the pressure.

Sandy threw his hands up with childlike delight and Jack laughed loudly, as North led the car into full speed through the woods and made dry leaves whip up around them. Aster grabbed his seat with anxiety and wailed as North ignored several puddles and got water and mud to spray up the sides of the car.

They jumped and bumped, as the car shot forward and North steered the car almost into the verge, in order to avoid a single oncoming car that looked as if it consider driving into the ditch to avoid them.

“Cricky!” Aster yelled in panic as North chose to take a short-cut and shot over a small path that was barely wide enough for the car, “you’re gonna kill us all, mate!”

“Why Australians always so nervous?” North replied lightly and took a hard turn, “we're still two minutes behind time – oh look, another shortcut!”

Aster gave up on yelling or talk sense into North’s thick head, when he was no longer certain he could open his mouth without vomiting and Jack screamed along with Tooth, as a low branch struck the windshield as a whip and blurred their vision with mud and old rainwater.

The wipers wiped quickly the water and the mud of the glass and made them aware that the road would change from forest road to raw moorland in a few seconds.

“Looks like it gets bumpy!” North shouted over their cries and screams. They hit the moors marshy and half frozen ground with a bone pulling landing. Mud and moorland grass was jumbled up in their ruts and the many tufts of grass and ponds got the car to jump like crazy, as they create a new road to the village that could be seen up ahead.

The car jumped sharply when they passed a lump of scrap in the middle of the moor, but none of them had time to think much about it.

Had they stopped and studied the piece of rusty steel, they would have quickly discovered this was the corner of an old bumper.

Maybe Jack would even have recognized the car, if it had been pulled up from the old mud hole and hosed clean of rust and mud. But even if he wouldn’t have recognized it due to bad memory or destruction of the car, the police would soon have been able to tell him from the number plate, that his family never left the village by car.

North steered them out of the moorland and onto the cobblestones, as they hit the town boundary and swung into the nearest parking lot with screeching wheels. Everyone was pushed to the car's left side in the sharp turn and then laid still. Everyone besides North sighed in either disappointment or happiness now that the drive was over.

North checked the time-display, "well, that took less time than estimated - what did I say? Teen minute!"

Aster was too weak to respond.

-

They walked over the old town square, which seemed too small to be a real square, but too large to just be a street and soon spotted the town's only pub. The building was sandwiched between two shops and inclined a little to the left, but it was the place alright.

One would have to walk down a staircase to get into the pub and from the open door, that was too low for North to walk through upright, old jukebox music could be heard. An old antique sign hung from the street with a black wagon on the front. Jack read the name of the pub with half interest. _’The chariot’._

The inside of the pub was a bit obscure due to the subdued lighting and lack of windows. Jack could smell heavy cigarette smoke and the aroma of homemade food and beer from the low bar filled his nostrils.

He spotted Jamie as the first. Jamie and his friends were rather easy to spot, since they were the most noteworthy with their colorful jackets and number, who occupied a long table over at the farthest corner and seemed to represent the young population of this place.

Jack and his own friends got a few looks from the locals on their way to the table, but that was only expected for as diverse a group as they were and Jack soon thought no more of it when Jamie got up to find chairs for them.

The little flock of teens seemed genuinely happy to meet the outsiders and Jack ended up at the seat between Aster and a girl whose dress said "princess", but appearance said "troll."

"I'm Cupcake," she greeted and Jack soon found that he liked her, as she turned out to be both funny and straightforward. And as the evening moved on, Jack couldn’t for his life remember why he had compared her to a troll.

"This is Claud and Caleb," Jamie said and two African-American twins greeted in their own loud manner, while they continued hitting each other and pushed for fun and/or space at the crowded table.

A little shy guy with blond hair and hipster glasses was Monty and the lanky redheaded chic next to him, with the T-shirt that said _'winner of the chess championship 2004'_ was Pippa. Monty and Pippa soon proved to be a couple, which looked a little strange, as she was almost two heads higher than him, but Jack couldn’t really be the one to judge.

Jack and the others presented themselves in the same way, but all of Jamie's friends looked up the second it was mentioned that him and Aster were a couple.

None of them chose to comment, but Jack had the feeling that he would soon be asked a number of embarrassing and/or strange questions regarding his sexuality later in the evening, when they had a little to drink and become brave enough to ask him personally.

Jack had tried it before and would probably have to do it again. There were always people for whom homosexual was somewhat mystified or something wrong. They needed an explanation and endless answers to even be able to comprehend what he was or why he had become like that – was like that.

Jack just hoped that Jamie's friends weren’t the judgmental types. He soon discovered that Cupcake wasn’t, as she spent the entire evening chatting with him and laugh at his jokes. Even the dead-baby jokes. Nice.

“Why do they call Ya Cupcake?” Jack yelled to outshout the others and she shrugged with a smiles, "I think it's because I always brought a cupcake as lunch to school and that I can be cute as one, but also knock all your teeth out like cavities. Why do they call you Frost?”

”I like frozen food!” he shouted back and kept to himself that the name actually had become a nickname after Aster had seen him eating a Popsicle in a most seductive manner after they just met. But yes, he also liked frozen food.

Cupcake’s mobile started playing _'Space unicorn'_ and she had to walk a little away to hear the words of whoever had called her.

It gave Jack a little time to listen to the others and be more social. Pippa and Monty appeared to be gamers and one of them had asked to Aster's tattoos. Claiming that they had seen some similar designs in some fantasy game.

“Not likely, mates. I've designed these myself. I make virtual design for living, that and the tai-chi I teach children as a side job and hobby.”

That seemed to interested the couple and the twins, as they began to ask about his martial arts and pestered him to show a few tricks on the floor.

Jack discovered Jamie sat by himself and moved to him, "hey Jamie, what would you suggest from the pub’s menu?"

It turned out that the place actually served ordinary burgers and with the tables varying and unnecessarily complex orders in mind, he and Jamie went up to the bar to order.

Jack took interested in the place interior and took note of the little strange details, like the displayed rifles over the bar and the bulletin board behind it, showing of the local sensations in the form of newspaper articles and photos from the village.

A large horse skull with braided onions and corn hung above the door, reminded Jack of Jamie’s exhorting order, slash, silly joke from before.

"Hey, you mentioned something about one of those skulls on the phone, what was that about?"

Jamie blinked surprised and then snapped as his memory returned to him and pulled his backpack of his shoulder, "right, good thinking, Jack – we can bring it back to the cabin when we go there after we've eaten – I show you where to hang it up and stuff."

Jack couldn’t help but smile a little by the sight of the other's spirit. Jamie really believe this stuff, didn’t he?

"And if I remember right, you said it was two keep _someone_ away – did you mean _ponies?_ "

Jack's humor was lost on deaf ears and Jamie shook severely on the head, "no, the Kelpies are further out in the countryside where there’s larger lake areas. The mare skull is to keep the people of the forest away. Tell them we respect the border. The forest boundary. It's an old pact."

Jack was now seriously alarmed, but also deeply curious. The last of the two won, "an old pact? Sounds wild, uhmm… when you say people of the forest, do you mean as in trolls or ...?"

"The Fea. Fairy-folk," Jamie interrupted with secretive eyes and handed Jack the bag. He looked into its depths and a pale skull stared back at him with hollow eyes. 

"And horse skulls are associated with fairies because ...?"

"It's the fairy prince's mark, he's the one who lures children from the village and the surrounding area into the forest to join his kingdom. I've done some research..."

Jack watched over his shoulder as Jamie found an old scrapbook from the outer pocket of the backpack and began flipping through it with eager.

Countless newspaper clippings of disappearances and accidents near the forest were pasted on the sides and sharing the space with old torn book pages, text or field-studies about fairies or fairy-lore.

Jack wondered briefly if Jamie had torn them from his own or library books and couldn’t help admire the work of the other teen. The book was one of the wildest Jack have seen in a long time, but he wondered briefly if this obsession (it sure looked like one) was healthy for a kid like Jamie.

Hanging on to the belief in fairies that way seemed kind of…unhealthy. Jack himself believed in aliens, but on a more tolerant level. Like - ten levels down the top of this kid's lane.

They returned to the other when the order had been passed on and settled at the loud table.

Jamie flipping through his book and knocked on one side with a quivering finger, "watch this, if you go back in time and old town registrations, you’ll find that someone has disappeared within a gap of ten years until 1920. Then, a child disappeared each year until 2004 and an entire family disappeared – well… it says in an article that they just left the place – but I couldn’t find one trace of them on Facebook, so I know they’ve been taken to! A year after that, it just started all over again. It’s a pattern in the way people disappear – I think it’s a conspiracy."

Caleb blew a raspberry with a tired grin, "Jamie, could we please just hang out one time without having to think of fairies and conspiracy theories?"

His twin slammed the book in Jamie's face and threw it back into their backpack, "it's not healthy, dude. "

"You know I’m right," Jamie persisted and North broke in, "wait, wait, fairies?"

"It's just stories," Pippa said with rolled eyes, that told everyone what she thought of the subject, "my grandmother loved to tell stories about fairies that eats naughty children at night and swap them with their own to fool people. If you promise to take care of a fairy child, they follow you to your death or something. Enchant you. Suck the life out of you."

"I just think they do it to keep people from walking into the forest," Monty continued and straightened his glasses as they slid down his nose, "it’s a wildlife reserve with large predators like bears. People can quickly get lost in there just walking few steps in. Furthermore, I think it’s even a protected area or something like that. Filling children with horror stories about supernatural beings is probably just another way to keep people from going in. That people keep disappear probably just proofs that they should fence it instead."

"But, guys!" Jamie cried impatiently, wanted to be heard and taken serious, "it’s real! My grandfather once saw one, the fairies are real. I don’t know how, but it all has something to do with the forest cabin north of the village!"

Tooth wrinkled her forehead in confusion, "do you mean no. 5? Well, that’s the one we live in."

Jamie turned and glared at her as if she had just cursed him in some ancient language and developed feathers, "... you’re ... you’re live in the cabin?"

Jack didn’t understand what the big deal was, "sure, you can go investigate it all ya want when we go there later tonight."

Jamie immediately rose from the table and almost flipped his chair. He didn’t seem to have noticed, “are you people _insane?_ People died out there!”

“Come again?” Aster said and turned encouraging to the other to get an explanation. None of them seemed to have anything to say and Aster shook his head, placing a friendly hand on the upset teens shoulder.

“Eh, listen, mate. How about we turn that fairy nonsense down a little and just focus on having a big night, okay?”

“It’s not nonsense,” Jamie raged and slammed his fist down the table. He wasn’t strong enough to make their beer glasses tip over or anything, but his outburst still gained him their full attention – that including some of the other patrons around them.

“Fairies are real and you’re gonna die if you don’t leave that place right now!”

North rose to get the teen to sit down again and relax a bit, but Jamie was already on the way out of the pub. He turned in the doorway and looked angrily at them, "if I were you I would hang the skull up before the sun goes down. Not that it's gonna help you."

With those last cryptic words, he was out the door, leaving them all in a stunned silence. Claud and Caleb tried to laugh it off, but the mood continued to be pressed until their food arrived.

The food made them all move in the direction of lot more festive mood and the murky atmosphere soon fell to the ground, as Cupcake exclaimed she actually would like to see the haunted cabin. They soon laughed at the idea of having spent the night in a cabin without knowing it apparently was haunted and Jamie's words was forgotten for a time.

They decided to drive to the cabin in two cars and Cupcake drove with them, while Sandy left with the others in Monty’s car.

Aster was very pleased to be behind the wheel again and made a big deal out of driving slow and civil. He followed Monty's car and they left the village in exchange for the large forest trail leading back to their cabin.

Jack was sitting next to him with Jamie’s backpack on his lap and Aster took it without a word and threw it to the back of the car. He found Cupcake in the rear-view mirror, "no offense, but what the bloody hell was that kid’s problem?”

Cupcake exhaled with a tired face, “it’s an obsession. Jamie have always believed in weird stuff and things like that – I’ll blame his family, they’re pretty serious when it comes to fairies and the forest – but it wasn’t like this three years back. Jamie lost his little sister, she just vanished one day.”

Jack sat up immediately, “why…what happened?”

Cupcake bit her lip, “…I think it was because of all those fairy stories they filled the Bennet kid's head with. Sophie loved listening to stories about those fairies. She dressed up with one of those stupid plastic wings and kept running to the forest border to play, telling everyone she had a fairy friend there. Making their mother crazy like hell. Mrs. Bennet lost it when Sophie just disappeared like that. The police organized a search into the forest, but Mrs. Bennet tried sabotage it – keep telling everyone that it was the fairies that had taken Sophie and walking into their ‘territory’ would only make their anger worse. It was crazy. They never found the body.”

Jack gulped and even Aster looked a little ill, “Cricky…”

It began to snow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> inspired by the horror movie "The Hallow" (2015)  
> I will update a chapter every friday


	5. My little horse must think it queer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright! plot develop!  
> hope you guy's still up for some fairy horror and badly written smut - if any of you have discovered any errors or written mistakes, please hit me.  
> *get's hit by a sledgehammer*  
> English isn't my first language and the gramma and right ways of spelling can be a bitch sometime when you don't have the eye for it  
> stay fabulous, enjoy and leave a comment if you feel like it
> 
> * * *

The fire of North and Aster’s damp bonfire had finally reached the point where the fire took hold of the firewood and Jack observed the moist leaves as they sizzled in the flames.

The snow had stopped just as quickly as it had begun and they had been able to continue the party outside as planned. He wondered if the cabin would rise or fall in price now that they had made an amateur bonfire in the middle of the lawn, but even if he hadn’t been drinking, he'd probably remain indifferent.

Despite the others' attempts to make this trip easier for him and put the cabin and his psychology luggage in a festive light, Jack could still smell the stench below. It wasn’t a stench you could smell in the literary sense. Jack imagined it as a thin invisible layer of mold clinging on to all surfaces.

A present only sensed in the dust swirling in the light of the winter sun in the morning, the dark lines in the cracks of the wooden planks, a pest that rested as a fungus just behind the wallpaper. It was a smell that only Jack seemed able to detect, a mixture of sweet childhood memories and bitter regret.

The police department that had searched the cabin to find traces of his parents, hadn’t left much behind after they confiscated the abandoned belongings as evidence materials, but Jack could still see feel them here... 

Sense his mother's face in the kitchen’s floral clay dishware. Hear his father's laughter as the ‘tiks’ and ‘toks’ of the clockwork above the fireplace. Feel his younger sister by the touch of the wind chime hanging in the beds-less bedroom.

It left a sickening bitter taste in his mouth and made his insides squirm like snakes. They were still in this cabin, despite their absent. They and all what he had ever associated with his family, hung heavily from the cabin’s atmosphere as thick moisture and threatened to crush him completely.

Jack had somehow thought he could have learned something by coming here. He had told the others this trip was to nothing more than to sell the stupid cabin and put his family's betrayal behind him once and for all. Get on with his life and move on for good, just…get over them.

But despite good intensions and self-amends, lies and delusions, ulterior motives and ideas of being better than that…he had still made the trip with discovery in mind, taken the trip with the simple intention of witnessing the last place his family were seen before they left.

See what they had left behind before they took their car and left this place and Jack forever. See with his own eyes exactly what they had done, thought, created and made of this place, before they suddenly decided not to do that anymore. 

Tried to put himself in their place.

Jack gulped. He didn’t want the others to know their efforts to uplift him had been in vain and put up a wide – but fake – smile, as North walked past him and tousled his hair. Traded his empty beer with a new one and made a joke Jack didn’t quite hear.

Jack just laughed and continued to smile even after North had turned his back to him and would probably continue to smile for as long as he lived. It was kind of his thing, really. Maybe even a specialty.

Jack could smile, smile, smile and still be broken inside. He loved parties and loved to forget himself by losing his mind in its joyful center, just lose all boundaries and worries. When you goofed around and made jokes, it was easy to forget you were an orphaned and wreckage of those who should have been there for you since birth.

Easy to forget you were unwanted.

Jack couldn’t blame or hold a grudge against his younger sister, though.

Jack could still remember the day she was born. His father had picked him up at school and steered like hell to the hospital in time to reach his own wife's delivery. Jack had waited quietly in the hospital's waiting-room with a patience that was to be the first and last time in his life.

The thrill and the terror created by the mere thought of having a younger sibling, had caused him to forget all about making mischief and made him quite…calm.

He had remained on the couch, he didn’t even have the space in his clouded mind to think about rummage through any of the room's houseplants in order to see if there were any worms hiding in the soil, or walked over to the elderly lady on the sofa to see if she would like to see a trick he could with his fingers - making it look like he removed his thumb, or tiptoe to the counter to grab the bowl of candy without the lady with the headphones behind it detecting him.

Jack had remained calm in little over five hours, when his father, sweaty and exhausted, had picked him up and brought him into the room with his mother and newborn sister. Jill had been a small red and slimy knot of wrinkles and dark hair, but Jack had lost his heart to her at first sight.

Jack had secretly hoped for a little brother, due to the unspoken rule that little brothers always took over the older brother’s chores at home, but all that had quickly been forgotten and the many opportunities and benefits of having a little sister took their place.

Jack had already decided that Jill would get the fortune the tooth fairy would place under his pillow that night in exchange for his two lost front teeth and smiled as his father gathered them together around his mother on the bed to immortalized the moment in a single picture.

Jack nodded to himself in the warm glow of the fire. He couldn’t blame Jill that their parents had chosen her over him. Jack knew that he had been an impossible kid and even as a baby, Jill had been more than lovable. He would have chosen her over himself anytime.

The thought was bittersweet, but didn’t really help his case of self-hatred and he unbuttoned his beer in spite. She probably didn’t even know about him!

He checked his phone and the little zeros announced midnight. A little reminder he had installed many years ago in his calendar popped up and blinked cheerily.

Jack smiled . Jill would be six years today.

A movement on the other side of the fire caught Jack’s blurry attention. He couldn’t quite figure out who the two girls were since the fire illuminated them, but nerveless, the girls waved boldly at him.

Jack waved back in drunk glee and wondered silently if Jamie's friends were playing a game, but frowned when his unfocused sight made it clear that all the teens were currently seated around the bonfire and listened to Caleb's ghost story.

Jack’s frown deepened and he stood to get to the bottom of this, but the two girls were nowhere to be seen. Perhaps he’d just imagined it? After all, the girls had been nothing more than two shadows in the glow of the fire and he had emptied more beer cans than he should.

He placed his empty can on the ground and decided it was time to get a little sober.

"I'm surprised it's not you who’s down there, frighten the little ankle-biters out of their wits. Whatcha ya sitting here for, mate?" Aster asked and sat down next to him.

Jack gave the woods behind the fire one last searching look, before he directed his attention to Aster, "hey, you know me. I'm too humble to steal the twins' spotlight and attract all the attention to myself like that. "

Aster answered him by tousling the hair North had left as spikes and Jack laughed. Tried to save his hair from anymore damage, "but those teens could really use a better arsenal of ghost stories. Who the hell is afraid of a _leprechaun?_ "

"Beats me," Aster mumbled and rose an eyebrow, as Jack rose and started to walk towards the woods.

"Hey, where ya going? I just seated my ass!"

"Come on," Jack whispered secretive and started pulling him towards the edge of the woods. By the fire, Tooth squealed as Caleb reached the climax of his story and made the others laugh.

North sat with his back to them and Sandy’s head was resting on Pippa's thighs. Clearly deep into dream land.

None of the others seemed to notice them slip away from the party.

They barely got behind the first clusters of trees before the lights and the sound of the party had been reduced to a low audible and only the flickering light of the fire was still visible.

Aster and Jack found themselves a bit overwhelmed by the forest atmosphere, a sight made of heavy shadows, static gravity and the wet smell of rot and leaves, before they both laughed like naughty children and sneaked a little further.

The forest was as transformed in the night and Jack who wasn’t used to being out in the untouched nature as raw as this, looked around him in amazement.

The pale moonlight made the many dense trunks appear kilometers high and cast solid shadows as long and thin as the bars that had once hung on the cabin’s windows.

Aster disappeared and reappeared in synch with his movement from shadow to moonlight and all sounds seemed to have increased in power and deeps of echo.

The moist leaves and verdigris branches crunched like canon shots under their boots and sank down in the soft mud and moss, while the bare branches and the sticking shrubs stroked their jackets and trousers like needy claws.

A bird took off somewhere and close by running water could be heard.

Despite the fact they were only one month away before December, it was surprisingly warm in the forest in a damp muggy way, as if they were only seconds away before a storm. Jack squeezed Aster's hand and he squeezed back. Jack had forgotten all about the two girls and pressed himself to the calm side of his boyfriend.

Being near the tall Australian always made Jack forget everything around him and reduced his concerns. Aster may not appreciate his antics or tricks most days, but Jack knew the other couldn’t be mad at him for long and under the layers of cantankerous and spitefulness, Jack had come to find a childish spirit in him.

A spirit that could only be brought to the surface with the right amount of harmless competition or closure. Jack laughed by the thought of a new whim and patted Aster on the shoulder before he ran, “tag you’re it!”

“Jack, wait!” Aster shouted, but Jack had already crossed the visible undergrowth like a little nimbly rabbit. Aster rolled his eyes, but went with the game with a little smirk and began to run. In any case, he would need to find the other before Jack got totally lost.

He frowned. It would be spot on Jack to get lost in some forest in the middle of the night with only his mobile as a light source. Aster checked his own phone and found no signal, or enough power to fuel the flashlight function for long. Cricky.

“Jack!”

He received no answer and he could have knocked himself over his forehead for expecting one. Jack was playing with him after all – if you couldn’t catch him in a game of tag, it would end up in a game of hide-and-seek. That was Jackson Overland for you.

"Jack, come on, mate! Ya just gonna end up getting lost and I doubt that you want to sit out here until tomorrow morning and wait for some rescue team! And I’m not gonna bloody carry you back!"

Still no answer. Aster wasn’t at that stage of mind, where he feared to get lost for good in the forest and loose his shit – yet – but he could no longer tell which way they had come from and wherever he turned, the forest looked exactly the same to him.

Incredibly how much a forest could change at night.

He made sure to walk clear and visible in the moonlight, in case Jack got tired of his game and returned by himself and went deeper into the woods.

The run through the forest had heated his body a bit and he tied his jacket around his hips, to let the wind dry the sweat from his arms and neck. He listened before he started running again and followed a natural path he figured Jack might have taken, if he would avoid falling of the forest's natural growths in the dark.

But then again…Jack had been drinking and maybe decided to make his own personal path...

He stopped when the side stitch did a permanent end to his run and slowly the concern began to creep in on him. Aster had always been a fast, strong and agile runner. He did sport at a daily basis, never got tired easily and could run, jump and sprint faster than anyone he knew of.

Jack himself was agile, but not nearly as durable as Aster. But Aster hadn’t really giving it a though about how far or how fast he had run – maybe he’d already passed Jack? He should have come across the brunette by now if the other had continued to run from him.

The thought of Jack hiding and he passing him by without knowing, made him search his surrounding with fearful eyes.

“Jack! ”

Still no answer and now Aster was getting really worried. He couldn’t for his life hear or see the edge of the forest. Even the forest patch was gone.

"Jack! Where are you!? "

The phone announced that the battery was up and the phone died in his pocket. Aster cursed frantically. Now he could neither call Jack or help. Aster tried to come back the way he had come from – or thought he had come from – but nothing seems recognizable or looked as if it was thinning out.

Maybe he ran in circles? He had no water on him and in a place like this you never knew when the cold would hit and burry everything in snow. Aster could feel the moisture under her boot soles, but knew he wouldn’t survive long in such a forest if he didn’t find drinkable water within a few days.

If he didn’t find Jack or his way back or someone raised the alarm in time, he could risk walking around in here till he collapsed. And that was only if no major predator met him first. Wasn’t it a rule that the police could start a search until the subject had been missing in over 24 hours or something?

Aster recalled his grandmother's voice a long time ago in the warm country kitchen. The old radio had interruptions her early brekkie tunes and informed them of a bunch of tourists that had went missing in the shady moist woods near her ranch.

 _"Those silly city people. They get enchanted by the forest and think ‘hey can go right in and won’t get lost a meter inside without a guide. Ya know what happens to fellas who take their chances in such a forest?_ " Child Aster had nodded, " _they'll get crook from drinking mud water and die of thirst."_

“Jack! ”

A rustle in the underbrush got Aster's ear to peak and had he been a rabbit, his ears would have bristle and turn to the direction right behind him. He turned around and tried to peer into the darkness.

The intertwined trees made it almost impossible to see anything and the moonlight disturbed his night vision to a point where he became almost blind in the shadows.

There was something under the tree, right under –

"Got ya! " Jack shouted and knocked him to the ground. Aster stared up in a mix of shocked and breathlessness at Jack, who had landed on top of him when Aster had lost his balance in surprisea ended on the forest ground.

He recovered quickly from the shock and shook the laughing brunette with a scowl, "are ya out of your mind!? I almost got a bloody heart attack!"

That just made Jack laugh louder. The sound of his joyful laugh made the darkness and its hollow threats seem to be somewhat relieved. Aster's fear of dying and losing Jack disappeared little by little and the grip the fear seemed to have had on him a second ago, was replaced by relief and mild irritation.

"Ya think you're so funny, dontcha?"

“I know so – it’s my thing, remember? And hey, it was you who wanted to get scared, wasn’t it?" Jack retorted in mocking innocence and bit Aster’s nose teasingly. Aster scoffed and rolled over, making himself end on top and Jack bottom.

Jack got an expression of anticipation and smiled in that crooked way Aster couldn’t resist. He realized he had overreacted. If he exerted himself, he could even hear the party and sense the light from the bonfire between the trees. He had freaked out for no reason.

He could almost laugh at himself and even Jack's joke seemed completely harmless now. He guessed it was time to make amends.

Jack hummed in satisfaction as Aster closed the gap between them and kissed him. Jack gave him immediate access and Aster forgot all about the forest, completely lost in the sweet fresh taste of Jack.

Small hands crept around his neck and clutching his hair in a fierce, but at the same time soft way, that made Aster purr.

Jack smiled into the kiss and his tongue became more insistent. Aster lost focus and moved his hands under his boyfriend lower back, closed more space between them and felt Jack spread his legs under him, pulling him in. Bringing them closer.

Despite the damp heat in the air, the soil and moss proved to be hard and cold to the touch, and the unit of their bodies created a light haze of heat around them. Jack whimpered as Aster started making a trail of kisses and marks down the small brunette’s jaw and neck.

When he reached the clavicle and wanted to lift Jack's hoodie, the teen below him suddenly stiffened and Aster looked up. A bit dazed, "Jack? "

Jack opened and closed his mouth as if he wanted to say something, but didn’t knew how and an uncertain glance slid across his clear brown eyes. Aster suddenly understood. Jack was nervous.

"Hey. "

Jack’s face was the epitome of guilt, but Aster pressed his forehead against his to show he wasn’t angry, "we don’t need to go further than that, if you don’t wanna, Jack. No pressure. "

Jack exhaled in relief and smiled again. Aster did the same, but not on the inside. The last thing he wanted was to force Jack to do something he couldn’t handle or feel he was ready to – and a damp forest floor was hardly the place for Jack to lose his virginity.

Aster was no asshole and didn’t want Jack to believe that of him either. His desire for Jack was quickly forgotten when he noticed how cold and wet Jack's back had become and put his dry jacket around him as they stood. He should take better care of Jack, especially here ...

"This place is kind of weird," came it hesitantly from Jack, who looked around in a mixture of astonishment and adventure, "magical, but _weird_."

"I know whadda' ya' mean," Aster replied less found of the place and kissed him on the forehead. Placed his arms around him and lead the way back to the cabin, "but I prefer the cabin, it has a fireplace."

Jack giggled as they walked, "oh yeah, this climate must be a bitch for someone who’s used to white sandy beaches and dusty ranches with kangaroos. Do ya people even have woods over there? "

"Of course we have," Aster snapped indignant, but with no real anger in his voice, "Australia is more than just sandy beaches and sheep ranches, for ya information. Plus, the kangaroo’s living on the east side and in the wild, not in ranches. "

"You must miss your flock so much. "

Aster pushed Jack and got a wide grin in returned. He considered his next words, but didn’t know how Jack would respond. It had been lurking in the back of Aster's head ever since they planned the trip and he took a chance, "we could always keep the place, mate ..."

Jack, still grinning up at him, hadn’t noticed the seriousness of his voice, "what? The cabin?"

"It’s already looking better and now that it’s almost done –"

"Nah, I just want it out of the world, Aster – also, if I don’t sell it soon, my foster parents will probably discover it and take advantage of it with all there foster and guardianship shit. Even if they don’t sell it for the money, I’ll probably have to come here with them during the holidays ... "

Jack looked quite ill by the thought of those future prospects and Aster got an idea. An insane and completely bat-shit crazy idea, that both frightened and elevated him to an almost euphoric level. Why hadn’t he thought of it before?

"We could run away."

This time the severity seemed to get through to Jack and he stopped dead in track, "what?"

"Think about it," Aster continued and held Jack's eyes with his own gray, "we could just run away. Your foster-parents doesn’t even know where we are and they haven’t called you even after three days – there could go weeks, maybe _months_ before they start searching for ya and we could be in Australia by that. We could go to my grandmother's ranch and outwait the time there. Ya become of legal age in two years and then ya never have to see the Jokul family ever again. We won’t have to sneak around or keep your curfew anymore – we could just be us, mate."

Jack had listened to him without a word or interruption and his mouth had opened in a small silent "o". His eyes lit up with glee and Aster laughed as Jack threw himself ecstatic into his arms. They topple over and tumbled around in laughter and joy, when a loud ‘crack’ got them both too stiff and shut up immediately.

They waiting in breathless silence to see if they had been discovered, but no one stepped forward to tell them to "go get a room". Jack sat up in curiosity and glanced in the direction the sound had come from.

"Maybe it's one of the others looking for us," Aster suggested, but Jack just took his hand and pulled him to his feet in order to sneak forward in the direction of the sound.

“Let’s check it out! ”

Aster wasn’t much for it, but Jack was unwavering and still a little red-cheeked from their previous play on the ground. Aster swallowed his protests and went along with Jack's hand securely in his.

They had barely reached a few meters before Jack forgot all about stealth and picked up speed, leaving Aster behind. Aster cursed a bit over his boyfriend's damn spontaneity and sneaked after him, "Jack, wait! "

His whisper was ignored and Jack soon disappeared out of sight. Again!

Aster was not gonna make the same mistake twice on the same evening and ran. His head snapped quickly to the left, when he thought he heard something and turned to the right when another sound followed the first.

“Hallo?”

No one answered him and he heard Jack call his name somewhere ahead. Aster squinted at the blurry moonlight and stopped as a large dark shadow appeared forthright.

A bit puzzled, Aster placed a hand against the old ruin and concluded it was an old house. Perhaps a forest cabin? The roof had long since collapsed and only the shell of the house was left, consisting of half crumbled brick crowded with creepers, fungi and moss.

The dehusked and half rotten door creaked noisy in the night, as Aster stepped cautiously though it and walked inside the ruin.

“Jack? ”

His voice didn’t echo, but the interior swallowed his voice like a sponge. The moss and the many layers of fallen leaves sank under his boots and almost buried them to the calf. The strong smell of rot and wet woodland hung heavy over the place.

The rotten house's beams divided the place in lighted and shade like lines on a paper. The north wall laid half of the place in perfected darkness, making it impossible to see. He moved further in, a trifle curious and a trifle alarmed.

Remains of windows stood tall and empty on either side of him and dilapidated walls which had once indicate divisions of room, had long since fallen apart and was nothing more than small stone elevations now.

He stepped across a pile of fallen rocks, knocked over a plank with a low cursing and found himself near one of the house’s dark corners. The stench of rot was even worse here and he wiped his nose with disgust. A slumped figure sat silently in the corner and Aster moved toward it, believing it to be Jack, who was trying to hide from him.

The stench became almost too much to endure and Aster felt the urge to vomit.

The flies buzzed and swarmed around the dead deer and landed eagerly in the bloody and putrefying fur. The animal almost seemed comical as it sat there, like a naughty child placed in the corner to think about what it had done, and the head, stretched from the long neck, rested along the corner of the building, as if to try reaching the missing roof.

Aster had seen dead animals of a certain size before, but there was still something…. strange about the cadaver in front of him. He stepped closer and made sure not to step in any of the fluids that had leaked from the animal or move its thin legs sticking out from under the leaves.

The blind eye stared un-blinking and dead back at him and made an almost glassy reflection that distorted his face to the grotesque. The fur had turned brown and black due to the old dried blood and the entire body seemed soggy, if not wet.

He concluded it had to be the moisture that had turned the body that way and picked up a branch behind him.

With a hand covering his mouth to prevent his gag reflexes from taking over, he pushed the deer’s head to the side with the stick and away from the wall. Long black threads followed and with a sticky sound, they stretched long and gooey between the dark smudge on the wall and the head’s hidden side.

Aster's eyes widened when he discovered the animal's other side had turned completely black and collapsed to a point where the entire side seemed flat, if not nonexistent. Black slime showed where the head had rested on the wall and when he let the head fall back into place, black sand crumbling of the fur and landed on the animal's chest and his boots.

"YAH!!!"

Aster screamed as Jack jumped onto his back and almost caused him to fall towards the cadaver.

"Jack, ya bloody showpony!"

"Surprise! "Jack laughed and jumped down from his back before he could get his hands on him. Jack's face quickly changed from teasing to confusion and then to downright disgust, when he caught the smell and fixated his drifting attention on the corpse.

"What? _Ew_ ... "

Aster nodded. Agreed.

"It’s covered in the same black substance we found on the cabin."

Jack moved a little closer and followed the direction of Aster's pointing finger. The brunette reached cautiously a hand towards the animal, but Aster stopped him, "don’t, it could be carrying something. Perhaps mold or ... "

"Maybe it's Jamie's curse," Jack whispered and wiggled his fingers, "uhh! _The fairy curse!_ "

"Be serious, mate,” Aster replied and Jack laughed an incredible bad imitation of a TV villain haunting crackle.

"Not as long as you scream like a girl. _Uhhhh!_ "

"I do not! "

Jack continued to tease and imitate Aster’s girly scream of surprise to Aster’s great annoyance and they left the ruins without thinking more of the deer or the black sand.

Aster walked through the door as the last and didn’t notice the dark silhouette behind him in the middle of the ruin. The door closed slowly behind him and stopped just before the frame. Neither of them heard or noticed anything, as small black fingers prevented the door from closing completely and opened it again to peep after the two.

Two eyes shone bright in the darkness.

_“...Jack…”_


	6. To stop without a farmhouse near

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sup guys  
> Im sick as hell right now, but good thing is you can write in bed =P  
> hope you enjoy, comments are always appreciated
> 
> * * *

The magical time of 03:45, better known as the _sheep hour_ , was upon the night. The strange hour of the night, when it was way too early to rise and still too late to go back to bed. The hour sailed across the forest cabin like a light wave and the darkness was complete, still and silent.

The fire from the garden’s new bonfire behind the cabin was still smoldering slightly and the two buckets North had thrown over the fire hadn’t yet been able to stifle it completely.

To his and everyone else's (drunk) luck, the weather proved to be too humid and the brown grass too wet to be flammable, and the last of the red embers died out in the cold wind. No chance of a forest fire tonight it seemed.

No one seemed to have taken notice of Jack and Aster's trip into the woods – or at least mentioned it, since most of the people around the bonfire had had an idea of what they were doing out in the woods and wouldn’t be the one to disturb – they returned in time to hear the others talking about breaking up for the night and acted as if they had never left the party to begin with.

Several of the guests have wished to go home, but North hadn’t really liked the idea of drunk minors driving through an unlit forest in the middle of the night and asked them friendly - but firmly to crash at their place.

Nobody had dared to objected and everyone had gone to bed.

The forest last leaves rustled in the rising wind and the moon was darkened by the drifting clouds that had gathering thick and complete, like a woolen cover. The last stars were washed from the sky and the moon's yellow face vanished.

The darkness reigned.

And the darkness had plans ...

Jack’s sweet dreams was crushed suddenly and painfully, when he was woken up abruptly, as the entire cabin shook due to the sound of breaking glass and then filled with screams from the first floor. Aster woke up under him and seated himself with groggy eyes.

Jack had to grab his shoulder to keep from falling off the couch they had flung himself on earlier that night and looked around in the darkness.

Sandy woke on his own couch next to them and they shared a confused glance, before jumping to their feet in alarm, as Pippa and Monty came running and stumbling down the stairs.

Both struggled to pull on their clothes and flee toward the door simultaneously. Tooth and North followed them down the stairs, but in a more leisurely pace and less dressed. None of them looked hurt, just a little shaken and edged by a their upcoming hungover.

"Hey, hey, what's happening?" Aster asked baffled and tried to slow down Cupcake, who fought to keep up with the twins and escape through the door.

Her size and struggles won over Aster's and she searched her pockets for the key to Monty’s car.

"Window, t-they threw a – they broke the window! Where the hell are your window bars!? There’s nothing keeping them out!" she cried in a mixture of horror and pure outrage.

Aster raised averting his hands, as she pushed past him and toppled a chair as she ran for the front door. She disappeared out the doorway where Caleb and Claude tripped, obviously eager to leave as well.

The oldest pointed at them with a quivering finger and shrill voice, "Jamie was right, this place is fucking cursed. We shouldn’t never come here – you shouldn’t never come here!"

His twin pushed him out the door and they vanished along with the others.

Jack, Aster, Sandy, Tooth and North were left shocked and a little flustered, in the middle of the living room, while the sound of screeching wheels and humming engines started outside the cabin and tore several stones up the muddy driveway.

Car lights and running engines was slowly swallowed by the night and then disappeared completely.

North was the first to break the pregnant silence, "other than me who heard a window being shattered?"

-

"It could be a bird."

They all looked at each other and Sandy shrugged while Tooth seemed a bit skeptical.

"You really think a bird could crush a double-glazed, Mr. Officer?"

The ranger straightened his cap and rose from his kneeling position on the floor, where he had studied the scattered shards of glass from the broken window.

Jack and Aster had crashed on one of the sofas in the living room, when Monty and Pippa had occupied their bedroom and the remains in shape of a jacket and unmade bed linen, testified that they had fled in great haste from the room just thirty minutes earlier.

Tooth have called the police after they’d all agreed, it had to be the be right procedure if one of your windows was shattered in the middle of the night.

The officer, who looked to be somewhere in his forty and well worn, shone his flashlight around the window and scratched his short beard, "believe me, we have some huge birds out here. It's not often we get broken windows like this, though. Most folks protect their windows with iron bars to prevent stuff like this, but it wouldn’t be the first time a bird of prey has mistaken some knick-knacks behind a glass pane for its next meal. Aha!"

They watched as he fished a wind bell up from under the bed and held it up to match the nail that had fallen down from the window corner.

"There you go. The bird spots something shiny and fly toward it. It is too stupid to understand there’s a glass pane in the way, smashes into it like a retarded flapjack and flees. You’ll probably find a dead eagle or something similar outside the window if you search long enough. "

Jack found it quite reasonable, but neither North or Aster seemed convinced.

"Maybe," Aster retorted a little reluctant, "but when we called ya, it was with vandalism in mind."

"Vandalism?" the officer asked interested, clearly more than a little excited by the thought of solving a real case and North nodded.

"We had a… quarrel with some of the young people from the town earlier tonight and it only got worse when the window was shattered. They believe the house is cursed."

"They kept talking about fairies," Tooth interjected with a tone that clearly told what she thought about the subject, "when we didn’t take Jamie Bennet's warning seriously, he became a little ..."

"Violent," Aster finished. Jack bit his lip, not liking how this evolved one bit. Would Jamie really be childish enough to throw stones in middle of the night because of a grudge? Or maybe to scare them? Both?

Jack understood Jamie’s fear of the forest, his sister’s disappearance and possible death was more than motivation enough and Jack appreciated that he had tried to warn them…in a way. Sorta. But was it really necessary to frighten them in order to get them in on the madness?

“I know the Bennet family," came it with a wry smile from the officer, “but believe me, Jamie’s just as frightened as he’s a puny weakling. That kid couldn’t make a crack in a window if he was lifted up in front of one with a crowbar in his hands. He’s simply too small and the window too high up!"

The old officer moved toward the bed to search for more clues and suddenly spotted the empty beer cans between the sheets. He gave them a long calculated look, "when you say the other teens from town was here, are we then talking about a party?"

Jack and the others fell silent, hadn’t really seen that coming – in their defense, it should probably be noted that their minds were still kind of clouded from last night. Well five hours before, really. It was barely morning.

When none of them delivered any genius lie that could justify the empty cans or their obvious beer breath, the officer just nodded slightly to himself and then went downstairs with a grunt. They all shared a minor panicked gaze and hurried after him.

Downstairs, the officer had opened their dustbin with his foot and spotted the many empty cans that had accumulated in it along with the sink during the evening.

Sandy gasped in horror when the officer picked up one of his joint, as it had been painfully visible lying in the ashtray on the kitchen table.

They all looked down in shame and fidgeted like children caught with the hand in the cookie jar, as the officer leaned the hips against the kitchen counter.

He took of his cap and scratched the little hair he still had left on his head, before he finally exhaled slowly and tiredly, shaking his head in mild disbelieve.

"Okay, this's what we do. I know you children come from the big city, you want to have a little fun and probably celebrate you've passed your exams, and so on. I let you off the hook this time, but if you ever feel the need to call an officer a second time, then _please_ do yourself a favor and dispose of your pot and beers _before_ you let him in, understood?"

They all sighed relieved and even Sandy smiled when he realized his father wouldn’t get to hear about this.

The officer smiled too, "I’m from San Francisco myself, I know you boys and girls are harmless – however, not all up here is of the same opinion. You must understand that this is a small community. You know what that means? That means everybody knows each other, everyone knows some unwritten rules and what not to do. This also applies to superstition. If you don’t agree with what they say up here, keep it to yourselves. Don’t do something stupid that could piss of the locals. The people in this town are old Irish settlers and brought their folklore with them – fairies especially."

They all nodded and the cap returned to its proper place on the officer’s head, “alright. You kids be safe.”

He blinked kindly to them like an old uncle, before walking out to his old police car again and Jack held the door for him. Had a feeling they owed the old guy in more than one way.

"Thanks, son," he said pleasantly and straightened the ranger jacket before stepping out and into the cold morning, "if I were you kids I would take a look at the cabin insurance and get them to pay for the window – but if you want to do something really smart, get those bars back up on those windows again. Makes it a lot harder for boys to throw stones through them."

With those words of wisdom, he lifted his cap one last time and went down to his car, drove to the forest path and disappeared in the early morning, which colored the world in the gray morning mist. Smelling crisp and cold as steel.

Tooth sighed and mumbled something about that they might as well eat breakfast now, and disappeared back into the kitchen. Sandy ran back in to make sure his stash was still secure between the couch cushions and North clapped his hands together.

"Well that is another way to start the morning. If we are to get anything out of the insurance, we better provide some evidence – do any of you have a camera?"

"A polaroid, handheld, digital and five different lenses upstairs," Jack informed him with a twinkle in his eye and Aster just shook his head. Jack’s foster father had to be freaking out by now with such a large hole in its camera inventory.

And now that Jack had agreed to run away with Aster, Mr. Jokul would probably never see his beloved gadgets again. That idea pleased Aster in more than one way and he led Jack back to their room.

"Come on, mate. Let’s get a broom and get the broken glass outta there."

"Do you think we can get anything through insurance?" Jack asked sincerely concerned and Aster shrugged, not the sharpest when it came to bureaucracy either.

"In any case we can just change the window – I can screw out the frame and probably get it fixed down in the village. They gotta have a small carpentry shop that sells frames that fit these forest cabins. Anything else would be strange, mate – don’t worry ya sweet head, It’ll all be ready for when the broker comes up here Sunday and inspect the place."

It seemed to calm Jack and the worried wrinkles smoothed out on his forehead, but his eyes stated to dart uncertain again and Aster already knew what Jack was going to say before he opened his mouth and beat him to it, "I’m pay for it, silly head. Let me take care of ya for once, okay?"

Jack knew from experience better than to contradict Aster when he insisted on paying for something and smiled as he knew it was expected of him.

The Australian had gotten tired of the whole "I can’t take your money, Aster" discussion and had finally put a lid on the whole malaise last year after a huge fight, when Jack wouldn’t take the phone he had bought for him - if Aster wanted to contact Jack, neither Mr. Jokul or money would get in his way.

End of discussion.

Jack suddenly got a devious look and kissed him on the cheek with a coy whisper, "only if you let me take care of you tonight."

Aster felt warmth stir in his abdomen and Jack laughed at the sight of Aster's blushing cheeks.

North smiled at the sight of those two, as he returned from the stairs and went out the door with a camera he had selected from Jack's surprisingly professional assortment. It looked quite expensive and North felt his fingers itch.

An old habit of placing a black-marked price on the camera emerge from the darkness and North repressed it with a pained expression.

_Forget it, Nicholas, think of Tooth._

He smiled at the memory of Tooth who had jumped out of bed this morning only with a blanket to cover herself. His little ruffled bird.

A light layer of frost had covered the grass and fallen leaves on the lawn around the cabin. The crisp ice crunched under his heavy boots and the small puddles cracked as mirror glass.

The sun had yet to rise completely, but the first gray color could just be glimpsed in the horizon between the trees.

North moved on to the east side of the cabin to get a snapshot of the window and the broken glass. There was no clear footprints or traces of Jamie – or whoever had felt girly-offended by their lack of belief in elves and fairies.

They didn’t know who had done it, but one things were for sure; North refused to believe the bullshit about a bird who just spontaneously decided to make a kamikaze against their window, right after Jamie has cursed them.

Cases like these just didn’t happen. They just didn’t.

North took a few paragraphs and it took some time for him to find the menu on the digital camera and see the result. The images looked kinda blurred and too dark to show the subject clearly – he doubted they would hold in court – and rummages through the camera settings to fix the light or maybe the contrast.

A flash pops up on the side of the camera and provided a blast of light. North grunted satisfied. Despite being anything else than sober, he still had it in him to get shit done when needed and took another picture.

Better.

The crack of a broken branch sounded from the right and North glanced toward the forest. The shade of trees was almost impossible to single out from the rest of the forests dark contour and North squinted, searched for a silhouette or new motion. A sly smile crept onto his lined face.

The culprit hadn't left the crime scene.

North acted as if he thought of the broken branch as nothing and took some more pictures. All the while, he stepped closer and closer to the right with his back to the person and ended up near the forest. He had almost reached the edge with his back turned, when he quickly spun around and took a series of lightning-fast images.

He blinked half dazzled and half shocked when the forest were lighted in grey and the shape of a black, tall, thin figure appeared in black contrast. North lifted the camera down from his blue eyes and stared into the massive dark. The darkness seemed to gaze back.

He ran a hand through his black hair, tried to think soberly. What –

_“North!”_

North turned toward the door where Tooth stood. An expression of concern stamped her pretty features, "you'd better come and see this."

North sent the forest one last suspicious gaze before he went in. Wrote himself behind the ear, to check out the pictures on the camera to be sure if what he had seen was what he had thought he’d seen or not.

In his mind, the figure had already turned into a high thin tree, he drunkenly had mistaken for a person, but his stomach insisted on something else.

"What is happening?" he asked anxious and found Jack, Aster, Sandy and Tooth behind the kitchen counter, all preoccupied with something on a dustpan in Aster's hands. North broke into their midst and placed surprised a hand over his mouth and nose, as the stench welled up from the dustpan.

"I think we’ve found our bird," Jack replied meekly.

It was indeed a bird ... a bird corpse.

The gray bones stood thin and scrawny up from the body. Black councils and decomposing feather hung in knotted bundles and messy clusters on the skeleton, as if the bird had been bathed in an acid and oil bath, made all the meat and feathers detach and place themselves in cakes on the skeleton.

A sweetish stench hung from the bird and black dust covered the glass shards on the dustpan.

"It was under the bed," Aster said with anger in his voice and looked as if he was ready to march directly up to Jamie Bennet's address and hurl the bird in the face of the first and best person who dared to open the door.

"Who in their right bloody mind throws a dead bird through a window in the middle of the night!?"

-

The forest shadow remained total and impenetrable without the sun's power to subdue them. The clouds above the woods blocked all light and laid the land in an insatiable darkness, as it was expected in the long and cold winter months up north.

The darkness gathered around a tall majestic silhouette on the edge of the trees border and his golden-grey eyes regarded the manmade forest cabin with a fixedly curiosity.

Hearsay traveled quickly through the woods and a special rumor had piqued his interest and will to leave his halls for a time. The humans had returned to the northern border of his land and they were many this time.

The Overland cabin buzzed with activity as the likes of one of the ant hills that hid under the forest soil and the five humans had taken liberties most of the village wouldn’t have dared or feared to simply devise.

His long gray fingers stroked one of the prunings and the tree's surface screamed to him and whispered of the debasement that had surpassed it.

Iron.

He sighed theatrically, touched it and new sprouts grew from the cut stumps. The new green sprout stretched and returned to its former glory. The forest took back its territory.

His territory.

His piercing eyes searched even though he knew it would probably be futile and indeed they found no landmark. No mare head hung from the gable or tree where one of the men had hung a swing.

They hadn’t acknowledged him or his kingdom. Interesting. And _oh_ so annoying.

He condensed the darkness, as the targets of his interest started to swarm out of the cabin. He watched them one by one. The first thing that caught his eye was the largest of them and whose presence might create the most havoc.

A man with hair as black as a moonless night and skin that smelled of the cold harsh north, where ice deserts and ancient forests prevailed.

It was the same one who had been rude enough to attack him with its human gear and left him in a second’s painful brightness. Blinded him for a moment and bathed him in a fake light his darkness had retired from in shock. Exposed him.

It wouldn't go unpunished.

He breathed in, but sensed no fear. The fearful aura that had oozed from the tall man just a moment ago when he had caught a glimpse of him in his full form with the sudden horrid flash of light, was gone. Only confusion, anger and hurt was left. Nor did he sense any fear around the next tallest and slimmer human-man.

He seemed to be the one least driving by fear and left no trace of such emotion around him. His anger burned like fire and clouded his aura like thunder. Temper, irritation and rage flashed in the gray eyes.

The sun shone on his skin and even from the forest edge, he could smell the pale land of the sun and the warm ocean that covered the human as a significant spice.

His jaw tensed and his shadows trembled as an extension of his anger. With a single harsh gesture, he regained control of the darkness and subdued a snarl. It was the edge of dawn, although the sun was hidden from his eye, it’s power still reigned over most shadows.

The night would return in time to punish these two men for their shamelessness and lack of submission.

The three remaining humans on the contrary…

He inhaled and was instantly filled with the pleasing aura of their growing terror and fear. All emotions wore a special aura around them, the simple instincts the animals in his kingdom carried in them were of the strongest and purest kinds.

Amongst the most concentrated was hunger, pain, pleasure and bliss, but among men, fear was the one that brought him the most satisfaction. It lay over them and their hearts as something persistent. They were afraid. They should be.

The woman who followed the others with her arms around herself, seems to search all shadows for the answers to her questions and carried a scent of nervousness and hopelessness around her.

A perplexed expression scarred the eastern facial features and he wondered briefly how such distant human beings had found their way to his land and that in such a variegated flock.

The fair-haired man beside her had the fear draped around him and it saturated him with power, but there was something…unnatural and disrupted about his aura, masking its true feelings with a fake calm and happiness.

A light veil of some intoxicants coated the little man’s aura and he soon came to understand. It disturbed his senses and he wrinkled his nose as he understood the fair man’s blood was poisoned. They all were, although the small light man was the only one to be encased in it.

Humans ... he remembered the smell of their scorching medications and firewater that made them act crazy and unpredictable. Made their auras erratic and provoked more anger or laughter than sincere feelings for him to feast on.

His gaze turned milder and more scornfully, when he saw them carrying one of his children's leftovers between them. The two angry men slammed it down into one of the hollow green boxes behind the cabin and appear to think themselves immense ensure and safe now that they couldn’t no longer see their "gift".

However, it was not him who had sent it, but one of his children. Said child stepped shy and uncertain forward to stand behind him in the safe darkness and gazed at the humans with a thinly veiled longing. He followed her gaze and found its goal to be the last human in the flock. A young….

He lifted one of his hairless eyebrows and the little one looked up at him with a silent prayer. He laid a gentle hand on her head and understood.

He nodded and she rewarded him with a smile and ran back to her friend, who giggled like the sweetest of forest winds and hand in hand they disappeared into the dark woods, where they would play between the ring of mushrooms and dance in the coming night.

He followed the young human boy with his eyes far longer than he had allowed them to rest upon any the others and felt the old bloodlust stir. His sharp teeth appeared between his thin gray lips and golden lined wings rose readily from his back.

The last Overland had returned to his kingdom.

-

_The cottage was bathed in white. Infinity stretched blank and threatening around them, without any refraction or aid to find._

_Imprisoned it with its branch thin fingers and penetrated through every crevice and connections of darkness._

_Long fingers crept up the steps, stretched toward the room and toward the bed where Jack was trapped._

_Frozen. He had come for him._

_He was here._

Jack opened his eyes and felt as if he had just fallen into a deep abyss. He pulled himself together and noticed it was cold in the bed behind him.

His heavy eyes and blurred brain caught the sight of the light and the sound of running water from under the bathroom door and he fell back into the pillow.

Aster was just taking a bath.

Jack sighed cumbersome and kicked of the covers a little to give his upper body some air. He was sweaty and warm from the dream and even if he tried, he couldn’t pick up more from it, than that someone was after him. It was a funny dream.

He had had it since he was a small child and the social worker had sent him to a psychologist at the request of Mrs. Jokul. She had grown tired of Jack waking her every night with his screams and the lady needed her beauty sleep – probably more than she knew of.

Jack. of course, hadn’t wanted anything to do with the psychologist at first, but eventually he had warmed up to her a bit since the woman had proven to be of great depth and actually wanted to help him.

She had explained that the dream was nothing but a reaction to his powerlessness and repressed emotions, a natural response to abandonment and hope of getting found – by someone at least. Jack had accepted it and slowly the dream too had waned in strength and only appeared at long intervals.

But it too had changed over the years. Jack could recall he had awakened screaming and crying when he was younger, but now ...

He bit his bottom lip and wondered whether Aster had forgotten about Jack's small promise from previously the day. Jack blushed and pushed the blanket down to the edge of his boxer shorts. It would certainly give Aster something to think about when he returned.

Jack waited and at some point he had allowed himself to close his eyes in content and unwilling fallen into a doze.

He awoke from his daze when the mattress dipped under pressure behind him and smiled half-asleep. His smile widened as he felt the tingling sensation of a hand moved towards his head and Jack closed the gap by pushing his hair against the hand.

Aster’s hand stopped for a second as in surprise and Jack took advantage of the other's pause to move back and into the other. He felt the other's warmth against his back, crept closer like a cat and sighed in satisfaction.

Aster said nothing, but the hand in his hair now stroked Jack, placed titillating blunt nails into his scalp and pulled the brown locks tentatively.

Jack purred in response and oppressed a chuckle. Was this Aster way of saying he wanted to try it rough?

The hand in his hair continued its alternation between soft and hard administration and the other hand went slowly around Jack's waist and pulled him closer possessively. Jack couldn’t see that much, but something told him Aster was smiling behind him. Inhaled his hair and the crook of his neck.

Jack tried to touch him, but one of Aster's hand gripped his wrist and forced both his hands down. Clearly saying that he wanted to lead. Jack was surprised, but played along.

He turned willingly his head when the hand in his hair ran down to his jaw and turned his face upward. Jack closed expectant his eyes and enjoyed this new direction their relationship had taken. It was surprisingly gently and patiently, but controlling and Jack found he kinda liked it.

It was strangely rousing being robbed of his freedom like that and Jack felt his boyfriend’s arousal grow behind him. Aster seemed to have used a new shampoo; the room was filled with a luscious scent Jack didn’t recognized right away and allowed it to overwhelm him along with Aster’s touch.

Heating lips bit Jack’s earlobe and took his face one kiss at a time. Jack wriggled eagerly and chuckled as Aster finally let his neck and jawbone be in favor of his mouth. Jack gave him access and met his tongue with sweet fervor.

A squeak got Jack to focus on his surroundings and he turned toward the door to the bathroom. It was dark under the door now and the handle turned slowly with a long creaking sound.

Jack's heart rate increased and he gulped fearfully. Behind him Aster inhaled deeply and sighed as in ecstasy. Jack sat up, eyes still fixed on the door, "I think there's someone in there."

Aster didn’t reply and Jack sat up immediately as the door opened. The light turned on. Both he and the Australian in the door blinked surprised. Jack looked confused at Aster and turned around. The bed was empty.

"Jack?” Aster said questioning and drove one of his towels over his hair to catch the last drops from the bath. Jack scratched his neck in confusion, wondering if he had just woken up from a dream and blinked the last of the sleep from his eyes. Even the sweet smell had disappeared.

"I thought for a moment you were here with me ... it was so vivid. "

Aster suddenly smirked, "is this ya way of telling me you have wet dreams about me now? "

Jack quickly caught the other's mood and smiled coly, "maybe – but I couldn't help but notice dream Bunny’s a better kisser."

Aster scoffed and caught Jack in with his towel, "allow me to disprove that claim."

Jack laughed as Aster lightly kissed the corners of his mouth and allowed himself to fall back, to let the other climb up on the bed. Unlike dreams Aster, the real thing’s hair was still wet and used a far less luscious shampoo.

Jack rolled his eyes at himself and his crazy imagination and surrendered to reality.

To Aster.

”Hmmm,” Jack hummed as Asters large rug hands found his naked back and pressed himself against him. Jack lost momentum as the kiss became deeper, more demanding, and he noticed Aster's member against his hip.

His brain slowly informed him of the little detail that his boyfriends was naked under that towel and his breath turned shallow when Aster free hand gripped his hip. Holding him in place. A small sprout of uncertainty and fear rose to the surface, when he felt Asters weight spread his legs a little.

His anxiety poked his mind in pace with the insisting feeling of Aster’s arousal. His member grew through the towel and Jack knew this was working up to something more than just a make out. But forced his doubts down.

He wanted this, he wanted to be here with Aster. He focused on the other's tongue and drowned himself in the feeling of the kiss. His scent, his warmth, his abs. He gasped for breath and buried desperate his hands in the other’s hair. Tries to find something to distract himself and his uncertainties with.

A shiver runs through him as one of Aster's hands moves down to the edge of the elastic of his boxers and began to pull it down ...

"Wait!" Jack gasped involuntarily and close his eyes in instant embarrassment. Aster stopped immediately and pressed his forehead against Jacks. They both laid silent and breathless in the dark bedroom and shared the oxygen between them without a word.

Jack finally found the will to open his eyes and gazed apologetic and anxiously up at Aster.

He thought he was ready, but ...

"It’s okay, mate," Aster whispered and Jack breathed in relief. Aster captured his mouth again, but moved his hands up and avoided moving south again. Aster bit his earlobe and Jack moaned. Jack was grateful for the consideration and tried to prove it with his lips and hands.

Tried to show how much he wanted and appreciated Aster. Tried to make amends.

Aster kissed his cheek, temples and hairline, before he buried his nose in his hair and inhaled Jack.

"We have all the time we need, frost. "

Jack smiled in content and let himself be cuddled by the other. Aster threw his damp towel over the edge of the bed, turned off the light and buried his face in Jack's brown locks. He soon felt Jack drift back into sleep and stared into the night. He didn’t want to push anything.

But still couldn’t keep himself from letting out a sigh of disappointed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> inspired by the horror movie "The Hallow" (2015)  
> I will update a chapter every friday


	7. Between the woods and frozen lake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MY NEW LAPTOP CAN'T MAKE FUCKING ANGLE PARENTHESES!!!!!!!!!  
> but the screen can flip backwards, so that's pretty cool  
> I'll survive - stay spooky out there, comment if you like - enjoy!
> 
> * * *

“C’me on, Aster. We found the bird, we’ll get the insurance money, no damage done – just let it _go_.”

Aster still didn’t seem convinced, silent and frowning as he was behind the wheel, but Jack loathed the idea of his lover walking up to the Bennet house and do something rash.

Even if someone really should had thrown the dead bird through the window out of ill will, a threatening confrontation would hardly be the answer.

Plus, Jack was pretty sure Aster would get arrested.

Jack forced his eyes back to the sight of the moist nature outside the car window, as Aster’s continuing to state his stubbornness and unwillingness to cooperate with him in silence. Jack scowled to his own reflection and saw a horse skull rushing by.

They soon doubled in number as they approached the small village and Jack smiled a little, as they drove past the small stone bridges and thatched roof houses. Despite the villager’s gloomy looks, the village itself was pretty sweet.

The broken window and its frame was safely supported by a blanket on the backseat and would get fixed while they did their necessary purchases.

After the (failed?) party last night, they soon discovered they needed to get their fridge refilled and the cabin's generator swallowed gasoline faster than they could fill it.

Jack was mostly interested in exploring the little village and get the best out of the situation, but it didn’t seemed like his boyfriend would drop the idea of calling upon justice anytime soon and buzzed sourly as they approached the town border.

Of course, Jack wasn’t very fond of the idea either that someone intentionally had tossed the bird into their room, but going around and accursing Jamie didn’t really seem fair to Jack. Jamie might be a little crazy, but that didn’t give Aster the right to identify Jamie as the culprit.

"You heard the officer yourself. Jamie couldn’t have tossed the bird through the window – he's too weak!"

"Jack," Aster sighed as if he was talked to an unreasonable child, "Jamie threw it, he’s angry, okay? Apparently people out here throw shit through ya windows if you don’t take their bedtime stories seriously."

Jack gave him a glare, "now that’s just judgmental, Bunny."

Aster ignored the nickname, "I mean it, Jack. Jamie and his like shouldn’t be allowed to commit vandalism against us, just because he’s lost his little sister to the woods. It has nothing to do with us and really – _fairies?_ Someone should force some sense into the head of that kid. If not his entire family."

Jack felt a small plug in his chest and tried to keep his voice neutral, "that’s not fair, Aster, and you know it. Jamie seemed quite okay and seriously – you and I both know the types that would think of throwing things through a window for kicks and Jamie’s definitely not one of them. And what about showing a little compassion? His little sister has never been found and is probably still out there resting somewhere under the moss. Try to put yourself in his place. I would probably warn people against the woods to, if it was me ... if anything I should probably be the one to know how it feels like to lose someone like that."

Aster glanced to him as he picked up the emotional edge moving into his voice, but then shook his head with a cynical clearness, "it's not the same, Jack. Your sister’s still alive. Your parents took her with them, she isn’t dead and you shouldn’t –"

Jack lost his patience and untightened his seatbelt, " – you’re so fucking insensitive some time!"

Aster protested in surprise as Jack opened his car door and jumped out. The car had slowed down in order to drive over the edge of the cobblestones and took some of the danger of the situation. But still.

Jack regained his balance without falling and quickly went his way out on the frozen grass, where Aster and his car couldn’t follow. He heard Aster shout after him, but ignored him. He was too angry and hurt to talk to him right now.

He stuck his cold hands deep in the pockets of the blue hoodie and stumped off on long legs without a real goal, just walking away from Aster. Jack clenched his teeth and felt his jaw tense.

Yes, Jack's sister was possibly alive, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t just as well be six feet under somewhere unknown. For all he knew they could have died in that cursed cabin – it would make way more sense than the current possibility of simple abandonment of their son.

In his heart, Jack had no disillusion hopes of ever meeting the six-year-old Jill. The walking, talking perfect Jill, probably looking like their mother… Jack would give almost anything to just meet her – just for a second.

But their parents clearly hadn’t wished it that way and what were the chances that they would one day just decided to reveal his existence to Jill? Or simply _call_ him? Was that too much to ask? Apparently…

Jack snorted angrily and forced his eyes to dry up like a man. He wasn’t gonna cry. Not now, not ever again. The tears hadn’t helped the ten-year-old him when he’d been picked up by the police, instead of his parents at the summer camp and they wouldn’t help him now.

Jill might as well be with Jamie's little sister below the forest’s topsoil. In any case, the chances of finding her where the same odds and the odds had never really been in his favor.

Jack sighed and walked into the village’s old streets. He would find Aster and apologize when he had cleared his head. Later maybe.

-

Aster watched as the last glimpse of his furious boyfriend disappeared behind a house corner.

Aster slammed the car door in frustration and felt an urge to bang his fist against the steering wheel. Just hitting something.

"Damn it, Jack."

If Jack had just heard him out, he would have told him that the difference between him and Jamie wasn’t only the fact that Jack's little sister was alive and still out there somewhere – but the simple fact that Jack shouldn’t give up hope like the Bennet’s and stop looking for his loved ones.

Aster stared out the window, lost in mind. Something unpleasant had started to creep in on him and the heated conversation between them had only fueled the growing suspicion.

Had Jack really just accepted his younger sister's disappearance, as if she was dead or at least dead to him? Aster felt a knot twist in his stomach and could hear how insensible he had sounded.

Cricky.

He sighed cumbersome with his forehead resting against the steering wheel and felt all the anger seep out of his body like cold water. Did they really just have had this discussion – right here of all places in the world?

Jack's family was last seen here, goddammit – how could Aster had let something as stupid as a dead bird control the course of this trip? Of their relationship? Aster cursed himself, ran the conversation though his head countless times like a broken movie.

Picked up the little pieces one by one.

The part where Jack compared himself to Jamie got Aster thinking. He frowned in alarm.

Was that it? Had Jack really come all the way up here to look for their bodies? Could that be it? Did he believe that he would stumble across a hull of an old car in the forest and find three white skeletons under a cluster of moss? Aster began to see the trip in a completely different light now.

Jack's little speech before he burned the family picture.

Jack's nervousness during the entire ride.

Jack’s uncertainty about moving to the next step in their relationship.

Jack who wasn’t sure he could do the trip alone.

Jack had still hope, but even hope lost its strength over the years and died out in the end. Jack hadn’t come here to put his family behind him. He had come to commemorate them for the last time. Jack was here for an invisible burial. He had been mourning this entire time without their knowledge.

And all Aster had done was making it worse.

He turned his head toward the window, but Jack was still nowhere to be seen. Aster decided he would apologize when he had finished shopping and had given Jack time to grieve.

He got out of the car and emptied the vehicle of empty jerry-cans and gently placed the broken window under his arm. He peered between the small straw houses to singling out the shopping street, as he moved through the village's entrance port and continued over the slippery cobblestones, where salt had been spread this morning to fight the ice.

A few locals passed him and stopped to send him long glances. Aster ignored them, more than used to cause a stir with his height, unusual tattoos and hair color. But there was still something different about the attention these people showed him.

He frowned when a group of old men at the corner of a memorial, sent him a collective unfriendly stare and not one of them looked down in embarrassment when he returned the gaze.

Several horse skulls hung from the buildings and Aster felt the discomfort rolling down his back. Light goose bumps covered his skin.

What the hell was wrong with these people?

He all but fled into the small hardware store with an adjoining workshop and closed the door behind him to get some distance between him and the main square outside. Two men in plaid and old worn caps looked up and they seemed anything but kindhearted.

Aster wasn’t afraid of them, but the alienations of his person was still unpleasant and unnecessary in his book. He walked up to the counter and placed the broken window on the dented surface.

"G'day, fellas, a bird hit the window and destroyed it last night, think it’s something you can fix?"

The older man glanced from him to the window and send then the other guy by the worktable a measured nod. The younger man took the frame without a word and put it on the table before he started screwing wood and glass apart.

He straightened his cap and looked directly at Aster with hooded brown eyes, "we can fix it, but unless you hammer the bars back up again, it’s of no real use trying to fix it.

-

”105, 106, 107, 108…" Jack counted quietly with a sigh filled to the rim with boredom.

As horse skull number lucky 200 made its grand appearance he lost interest and went searching for a new diversion. He soon became bored out of his mind again, but wouldn’t allow his mind to wander and fall back on thoughts of mischief.

People around here didn’t seem to like strangers one bit and although Jack surprisingly fit well into the crowd with his brown hair and eye color, it was clear that everyone knew each other here and singled him out with their judgmental stares.

Jack pulled his hood up and hurried to pass two men who had been watching him for a while. Looking as if they were just waiting for him to do something funny and get an excuse for beating him up. Jack gulped. Nope, no tomfoolery or pranks here.

They'd probably hang him if he tried anything funny.

He spotted a window with iron bars and started counting again. He quickly got to a high number and looked around in confusion. Was everyone afraid of getting birds thrown through their windows, or was there some weird window fashion he hadn’t got the memo about?

His distraction-desperate eyes was soon caught by the sight of a young brunette with small prominent ears and nose buried into a tome and Jack flashed a big grin, "hey! Jamie!"

Jamie was clearly startled, if almost jumping a meter and losing the grip of his book was any indication to go by, but tried to act as nothing. Jamie turned to him and looked as if he just wanted to disappear down the cracks of the cobblestones and curl up and die forever.

Jack didn’t let it get to him and ran up to the teen, "hey, we were just in town and –"

"Listen, Jack, I want to apologize for yesterday," Jamie interrupted him rapidly, fidget nervously and turned the buttons of his jacket, "I acted like an idiot and I heard from Cupcake what happened. Are you guys okay?"

Jack just waved him off with a smile, "nah, it was just a bird hitting the window and the insurance covers it all, so really, there's no harm done. But listen, Jamie, I would like to apologize to – I heard about your sister and I just want to say I know what you're going through. It wasn’t fair of us to make fun of ya believes like that."

Jamie loosened up and seemed somehow uplifted by Jack's words despite his timed expression and Jack took it as a good sign. Jack knew most people would rather act as nothing, than ask to your loss, like it was something to be ashamed of or some sort of taboo to discuss.

Before Jack meet his friends, he had never had someone to talk to about his loss of family and he knew how frustrating it could be to keep it inside for too long. By Jamie’s positive reaction, Jack guessed not many people walked up to Jamie and used his decreased little sister as an icebreaker. Allow him to talk about his pain.

Jamie started accompany him as they continued down the street and slowly he opened up about his sister. Jack knew the story from Cupcake, but Jamie clearly wanted to get a lot of things out and seemed starving for this course of conversation.

"So you’ve lost someone too? Sorry by the way,” Jamie said and led them down a small street.

"It's alright, I’m mostly worked my way through it," Jack replied easily, but quickly fell back into his dreary mood before he crossed paths with Jamie, "my parents and my younger sister disappeared a couple of years back. I have no idea where they are and apparently they don’t wanna be found by me or anyone either – but I know they were last seen here six years ago."

Jamie had listened careful and showed genuinely interested, but suddenly made an alarming expression by the last part. He hastened to hide it while they crossed the last of the village border and continued out to walk along the moor that stretched to the south.

Jack enjoyed the cold wind and took in the stunning view that was lined by the thick forest and the grey sky. He soon stumbled across North’s old ruts and smiled at the memory of the wild ride.

Jamie turned to him with an uncertain frown and his voice sounded slightly strident, "Jack, you've got to listen to me. The bird isn’t a good sign. This means they’re aware of you – it’s a warning!"

Jack tried to keep a neutral expression, but Jamie saw right through him, "fine, but if you don’t believe me, at least take my advice – just run, okay? Go before it gets worse."

"Don’t worry, we’ll only be here until the broker arrives on Sunday. Then I’ll be out of ya hair in the matter of hours. Relax, you’re so tense," Jack said, smiling soothing and tried to tickle the other.

That didn’t seem to be sufficient enough for Jamie – neither the date or the tickling for that matter – and he placed a stern hand on Jack's shoulder.

"Jack, listen to me ... I broke into my grandfather's library yesterday and I found some things ... Jack ... there's a reason nobody lives in the Overland hut."

Jack burst into laughing, "what? Now my family’s cursed to!?"

Jamie pulled his hand back as if he had burned himself on hot iron and he gaped terrified. Jack crocked his head, "what? What did I say now?"

"I can’t believe it…You’re an _Overland!?"_

Jack rocked on his feet with a humored smile, "Jackson Overland. That's my name, wanna buy it?"

His humor was once again complete and utterly lost on Jamie and the guy looked as if he was debating vehemently with himself whenever he should run or stay. The last one seemed to be the winner of the quick match, "you can’t be here – they’ll kill you!"

Jack rolled his eyes, was the guy even real?

"First they wanna punish me, then they wanna curse me and now they wanna kill me? Is it still the fairies or the schoolboard of Burgess high we’re talking about?"

Jack yelped in surprised when Jamie grab his hand without a warning and began to run like the devil was hot on their trails. Jack followed the other in bewildered confusion, still not quite sure what the hell was happening, "whoa! Slow down, buddy! Where’re we going?"

"My house! " Jamie shouted against the wind, tightened his iron grip on Jack when he tried to wriggle free and shot straight for the house the farthest out on the moor.

Jack smiled wryly to cover his uneasy, "usually people take ya out to eat _before_ taking their hand and bringing them home. But hey, maybe that’s just me being old school!"

He got no answer and started to become breathless as they crossed a frozen and bumpy moorland where tufts of frost-covered reeds and ponds made it difficult to run straight.

Jamie didn’t stop his crazy run until they reached his driveway and Jack shuffled after him all the way up the stairs with a side-stitch biting his left side like an angry beak, stealing his breath away.

“Hey, w-wait!”

Jamie opened the door and pulled Jack through without taking the least care of his anguish. The warm cabin was a huge upheaval in relation to the moor's cold biting wind and Jack could feel his nose start running and cheeks burned.

He sniffled and followed the brunette, who had continued the tour-de-force and disappeared into the cabin's living room.

Jack noticed it was built exactly like theirs, but several extensions had transformed it from a cabin to a real house. A greyhound growled from her place on the carpet at the fireplace and Jack hurried after the teen.

"Here," came it eager from Jamie, who rummaged through a book in something that looked to be an old office or trophy room of some sort.

Jack tried not to let himself get creeped out by the many glass eyes watching him from the many heads on the walls and walked to the desk, where Jamie threw a large leather-bound book on the wood surface and motioned for Jack to come up beside him and read for himself.

"Look, it’s all there in grandfather's book. It has been passed down for centuries – it's legit."

Jack walked precariously up beside him and took his assigned spot in front of the book. It was antique in appearance and certainly a few hundred years old, with yellowed pages, dense small ink letters and a wrinkled bark-like motif on the front. Jack was no book expert, but to him it looked real, not a fake.

He followed Jamie's finger running down the book's index and stop beside one of the stories that was noted as one of many history titles.

Jack rose an eyebrow, _“The Overland curse?”_

Jamie faintly nodded and began flipping to the designated page number of the story.

Pictures, headers and small chunks of text flew past Jack's eyes faster than he could absorb them and Jamie tried to explain it all at the same time, but got too eager in his ardor and just confused Jack more with his fast talking nonsense.

Jack abandoned all hope of keeping up with the kid and simply focused on the pictures and woodcuts. He would probably never look at fairies the same way again after this. He stopped Jamie’s flipping to focus on a dark woodcut of a young girl, who was being devoured by three scrawny ghouls.

All with large luminous eyes and bared fangs. Dark wings stretching from their backs.

Jack read with a frown, _“the feast of the vigin bride…”_

The sound of heavy boots stepping in the hall got them both to release the words of the tome and focus on the sight of a middle-aged woman, appearance quite similar to that of Jamie – but with darker hair and glasses, who had stopped in the door to watch them with confusion.

Her gaze locked onto Jack’s persona a split-second later and lightning shot in her eyes, "what is _he_ doing here?"

Jamie grabbed Jack's arm by instinct and Jack’s eyes widened to the painful, when Mrs. Bennet pulled a rifle down from the wall above the fireplace.

"Take the backdoor," Jamie whispered and Jack backed away, as the woman pointed at him with the raised rifle.

"I will not have an Overland in my house! Get out! It’s your curse that has taken Sophie!"

"I –," Jack croaked dumbfounded and the woman started to scream.

"IT'S YOUR FAULT SHE’S DEAD! HER AND ALL THE OTHER CHILDREN!"

Jack had seen enough and ran. Mrs. Bennet's hysterical screams followed him all the way to the backdoor and he ran as fast as his legs could carry him. A rifle shot echoed behind him and the panic caused his legs to run faster and he shot toward the thick woods behind the house.

He continued to run even after the tree’s shade had enveloped him and didn’t stop in fear that Mrs. Bennet had followed him.

His side-stitch from prior returned tenfold as a thorn in his side and Jack limped out of breath and staggered terrified toward a cluster of trees and jumped under a toppled trunk. Clutching himself together and waited breathlessly.

He didn’t know how long he had waited, but when the sweat began to dry on his forehead in the forest heat, his heart started to calm down and his cramping legs began to relax. He guessed it had been long enough for him to switch back from surviving mood to something less angsty.

"What the fuck is wrong with these people?" he whispered quietly into the woods, but received no reply. He turned cautiously and peered in the direction he had come, but found no hysterical woman with a loaded rifle sneak up on him.

Jack sighed with relief and leaned against the tree’s soft moss and stretched his legs out in front of him. He closed his eyes and regained normal breathing, ran his hand through the sweaty hair and suddenly discovered the book.

The book was lying innocently on his lap ... he had taken the book with him in his flight.

Oops..

He ensured once again that he wasn’t persecuted and weighed the heavy tome in his hand. He should probably go back and put it where Jamie could find it. But then again ...

Jack looked around one last time and flipped the crisp pages. His curiosity brought him to the desired page, where a twisted ribbon of painted runes presented the title; _“the Overland curse.”_

Jamie had wanted him to know about this and who knew? It could be important. Maybe he actually wanted to know what this book had to say about his surname – by all means, it would give him something to do until everything had quiet down and gotten dark enough for him to sneak back and return the book unseen.

He turned on his phone's flashlight function (noted there was no signal, but ignored it) and began to read.

_**The Overland Curse** _

_In the Irish village north of Urchan and south of Milltown, a godly year, the land became plagued by a poor harvest._

_The many farmers and smallholders suffered from this catastrophic deed and in particular a simple peasant and his family did saw the erroneous harvest as punishment for their sins, as only several more ills had followed in the harvest’s footsteps._

_The peasant and his family could not pay their bushel to thee landlord and he threatened those folk ever so terrible about tossing the family out of house and home, if it be true their debts were not paid the next day._

_The peasant, who was a simple sir, but loving father, could not bear the thought of seeing his children suffer and decided to sell the family's only cow, and that despite the fact the cow was the only thing still keeping the house from starvation._

_Admittedly, the coin in exchange for the cow would pay their landlord, but not their lives in the long run._

_He then went off on the road with the cow and at which hour darkness had fallen, it happened that he came across a young mistress on the dusty road. The peasant knew he had long distance to all his neighbors, but meeting strange traveler occasionally on the road was not uncommon. Especially in the summertime, where markets attracted all kinds of travelers._

_The lady person however puzzled him._

_The lady's light golden dress was far too precious and unfit for the harsh night weather and her ankle-length golden hair fell loose and shamefully down her back, as if the lady was a simple whore. The peasant did not like the thought of such a young mistress walked along on the road on her own and offered to follow her safely to the town._

_The mistress took up his offer and followed him silently and effortlessly by the dusty road, she barely seemed to touch, light as she was in the moonlight._

_At which hour the sir did notice the lady was barefoot in the stern coldness and had eyes like the deps of hell, he became afraid and did cross his chest. This seemed to amuse the mistress and the lady asked of his errand on the road._

_He told her that he was heading to town to sell his cow in order to keep the hunger, the bitter cold and the landlord of his doorstep, and all this he told her in the name of Jesus Christ._

_The young mistress then offered to buy the cow, but the sir knew better than to trade with fairy-folk and rejected, but was nevertheless tempted when the lady offered him any wish in exchange for the animal._

_But immediately he remembered Jesus Christ in the desert, who did resist the devil’s temptations three times and with faith in his Lord, the man refused the fairy’s offer. This made the fairy furious and she threatened him ever so terrible._

_If it be true he did not sell her the cow, it would die by the hands of a strange disease before he reaches the town._

_If it be true the cow should live to walk past the gate of town, then the sir would see there was a bull-market in town and receive a low price for the cow._

_Should he sell for the low price nevertheless, be it and return home, then two robbers would wait for him on the road and kill him for the few chinks._

_All this because he did not sell the cow to the fairy._

_The simple peasant did beg for his life and the fairy appeased. She offered him the wish once more and the sir who did not dare to refuse the fairy again, thought cunningly to himself that he could wish for anything he desired and did wish for vast wealth._

_"Be easy," retorted the fairy, "I shall grand thee greater riches and happiness than thou hast ever seen before. All this for the cow by thee side."_

_The fairy told him quietly that when he returned home, the table would be covered with gold chinks and riches. Enough to keep the hunger, the bitter cold and the landlord of his doorstep._

_He then handed over the cow as the deal commanded and went home. But when he did turn around, he found that the cow and the fairy was gone and he ran the entire way home, as he did cross himself and did pray in the name of God._

_As he reached his simple home, his wife awaited him ever so frighten in the doorway and led him to their living room, where the table and the floor, as promise, was covered with the purest of all gold chinks and costly trinkets._

_His weeping wife thank God for his glory and the peasant, who did not want to alarm his family and let them in on his godless deed, allowed them to stay in that believeth._

_In the years that followed after this strange meeting, the man and his family became quite wealthy and the richest farm in the area. They should neither fear the hunger, the bitter cold or the landlord banging at their door and for a while everything went its merry way._

_But as much happiness as the gold chinks had brought, just as apace, they were spent and the wealthy peasant had to sell the farm, then the livestock and soon he was left with nothing but the cow as the last defense against poverty and the landlord's demands of paid tithing._

_With his wife carrying a soon to be born child and expectations of starvation at hand, the peasant then decided to try his luck once more and went off with the cow on the dusty road in the moonlight. Rest assured he would meet the fairy mistress once again and do a better wish this time around._

_Quite true, the fairy awaited him and did him company as the last time they had met. The lady left nay imprint on the fair snow and her light silver robes and stark white hair floated around her form, as quaint as one of the lord’s angels._

_The peasant then offered the lady the cow in payment for a wish, assured the lady would accept, but this time the fairy did not show interested in the animal. This time the lady did want a different deal in return for her services._

_“Be easy,” said the fairy, “for I will make thee richer and happier than thou has ever been before, only thou must promise to give me the young thing which has just been born in thy house!”_

_This sounded ever so terrible to the petty peasant, since he, like all good God's children, knew that the fairies turned their stolen human children to slaves, kidnaped and did marry untainted virgin youngsters, to live with them underground and used the very human souls as payment in exchange their powers in hell._

_The fairy did soothe his fears with the assurance that the child would only be in her custody temporarily. While his wish would last as long as he lived, the fairy would give him her own son in pledge and his youngest would live as a prince in the fairy’s kingdom underground until he came of age._

_The peasant did refuse and the fairy did promise him vast wealth and great joy. His family would rule as landlord over his soils and never should they feel the hunger, fear the bitter cold or suffer from the fairy-folk’s wrath, as long as they lived._

_But the sir could not sell his own flesh and blood, and did flee. Quite forgot the cow in his fear._

_At which hour he returned to his house, he found sure enough the living room stuffed with gold and his wife carrying their newborn son in her arms. Seeing that the fair boy was human and not fae, he hasted to collect their new riches into holdalls, chests and saddlebags, wherever there was room._

_He then packed their few belongings and did place his family on the neighbor's wagon and headed towards the town. Forthwith, the man bought a ticket for each of his family members to cross the water, did secure his youngest son in his arms and left his motherland forever._

_In the new harsh land, the sir bought land, yard and livestock, went to church every day and did pray for forgiveness for his sins. Eventually his memories of the fairy mistress paled and with the years it left his troubled heart._

_As time passed, the luck seemed to be in the peasant family's favor and with the valorous harvest and gold, they soon became the richest family in the area and the landlords of the bawbling Irish immigrant village in the new strange land._

_On a particular day, it did occur that the sir felt a healthy urge to inspect his livestock before the next season of harvest and visited his stables. To his hoyday, he found an extra mare in the midst of his herd of cows._

 _In the belief that one of his adult sons might had purchased the animal without his knowledge, he went to his family at the breakfast table, where his wife and children was seated._

_As he did seat, the youngest arrived from the stable and did place a bucket of fresh milk on the table. To his father’s most wondrous horror, the knave then started to drink its entire content and slowly the boy’s shin changed into a most remarkable color._

_Soon the knave's skin had completely paled like that of a grey corpse and his locks did turn as black as the wings of a raven._

_The father, who feared the knave had turned ill due to spoiled milk, did want to discard the bucket’s foul content, but the boy did refuse as he insisted on the horse milk being a gift from his mother. Instantly the sir did turn livid and at which hour the night had fallen over the village, he did seize the knave in his bed and led him by the dusty road._

_As was expected, the fairy mistress awaited him in the colors of fall and crimsoned hair hanging loosely under the wax moon. The sir brought forth the knave and demanded the return of his own son in exchange for the changeling._

_But the fairy just shook that fair red head. The child of man could not return to the mortal world without a sacrifice in exchange. At that, the sir did reply that he would do anything to have his child back, regardless of the price this time._

_To this, the fairy demanded a contract._

_“Be easy,” laughed the fairy, “I shalt return the fair child and leave thee with riches and health in great condition. For when thy son comes of age, he will accept marriage engagement with mine own son, the prince of my kingdom underground. He shalt these forests rule and thee shalt honor this pact.”_

_The sir, who know knew better than to disown the fairy, gave that lady his word and a lad-bride of his blood. When his word was spoken, a white-haired boy was brought forth from the fairy mistress' red robe and the two boys was switched over._

_As soon as the knave had returned to his rightful father's arms, his shimmering white hair returned to that of brown and all the star shimmering fairy-features did erase from his body._

_The knave, by the fairies named "Nightlight", returned to the village to live amongst humans and the forest became home of the fairy queen's son, the darkling fairy; Prince Kozmotis Pichiner._

_The peace between the village and the forest was to last many a merry year._

 _The village's inhabitants had many a most wondrous harvest and happiness, which made the village bigger and richer than most, but coequal though many a peasant had the wage to expand his parcel of land, nay one did dare to chop down bits of the forest or plow the ripe soil._

_The forest border became the village border and nay one did dare to put their feet within the trees, as many spoke of dark figures lurking behind the trees and grazing animals disappear once they hath left the herd and did stray into the woods._

_It then came to pass one faithful night, that the peasant passed away of old age and went to our lord in the heavens. His youngest son, Nightlight, did achieve a marriageable age, took a faithful bride and had many children._

_One moonlit night he felt a certain uneasiness in his soul and went for a walk on the road alone in the spring night. He was then soon joined by a lonesome rider on a mare as black as the night. The rider then told the young sir to halt and did introduce himself._

_Nightlight, who remembered the realms of fairies and did recognize the darkling prince, was filled with most wondrous apprehension and when the fairy asked of his hand in marriage, Nightlight ran as fast as he could._

_At his house, Nightlight hasted to barricade all entrances to his home and his wife and children did weep bitter drops of sorrow for him until dawn._

 _At sunset, the young sir then gathered all the durable men of the village and led those folk out to the border of the forest, where they decided to burn down the forest and kill the fairy in the righteous name of Christ._

_But as soon as the first tongues of crimson flames had burned and blackened the surface of the trunks, the fairy prince did step out of the dark and cursed Nightlight with his diabolic magic._

_“Be damned!” said the fairy, “none of thee blood will be spared by the hands of mine and nay human of this land should know their children safe, until every last of the Overland's family's blood has manured the forest soil and saturated the roots of the trees!”_

_After many a year of terror and countless innocent children's disappearance into the woods, the village finally united against Nightlight and spilled his blood at the border of the cursed forest._

_The profane sacrifice brought an end to the numerous sorrows and peace reigned, until the tenth year after the death of Nightlights. At which hour fear once again took hold of the village, the humans did repeat the ritual and sacrificed once again a member of the Overland family._

_The ritual was to be repeated continuously the next decade and the decade after that. The blood of the Overland family was given back to the forest and the fairy prince was propitiated decade after decade._

_By this pact, the village people could then once again keep the hunger, the bitter cold and the forest prince’s wrath of thy doorstep._


	8. The darkest evening of the year

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright - i had a hard time writing this chapter since Pitch's a complicated character  
> When you find him in fanfics, he's always this mysterious collected Nightmare king, who thrives in the fear of others and especially Jack's fears.  
> Sometimes he's emotional if it fits the story, but most of the time he got his shit together  
> In the books he's just plain evil, but a honest antagonist with a hurtful backstory  
> But in the movie! Damn - the movie Pitch Black is like...all of the above, but have you guys ever noticed how fearful Pitch looks when he's attacked or the way he rages like a five-year-old when things doesn't go his way?  
> As said, i had a hard time writing Pitch Black, but i guess this will be my tribute to the fandom, until i come up with a real Guardian fic and not just a alternative univers.   
> hope you enjoy, comments are always appreciated =)
> 
> * * *

Jack flipped the book a few pages and reverted to the beginning of the Overland story.

…Was that it?

He searched in vain for the name of the author or the story's origin, maybe even a sequel, but found nothing.

With knitted eye brows, he went on to the next story and found similar tales of child thievery, people lured into signing shady contracts in exchange for wealth or miracles and children who were captured and tricked into death by dancing under the moonlight.

Jack gulped heavily as more stories about changelings appeared and a large woodcut of an infant stood side by side with an almost identical woodcut of a thin shadowy monster in the fetal position.

“Geez…” Jack whispered quietly and ran a hand through his wild hair.

Now he understood better why Jamie had freaked out like that earlier. Jack’s family name appeared in more than one of these stories and the book appeared to be one large collection of horror stories and inherited fear of fairies.

Jack never thought fairies to be this wicked. When they appeared on film or TV, they were always small leaf-clad toddlers, who picked berries or put acorn shells on their chubby heads. Those fairies were small, cuddly and friendly.

These fairies were straight out of hell!

Jack couldn’t believe it. He snorted and scrolled a bit further, “what a load of crap”.

Jack had to strain himself not to laugh out loud and slammed the book shut with a grin. Did Jamie and these people seriously believe a bunch of fairies to sneak around in the woods?

That a magical “fairy prince” was to blame for some people’s disappearing?

Jack shook his head in mild pity and wished himself back to civilization. He doubted that these people would go as far as to cut his throat to satisfy some old sacrifice ritual pact – or whatever – to a forest, but there was obviously something fucked up with this place.

Jamie's mother had shot at him after all.

....Maybe they would…

Jack rubbed his throat involuntary, shivered and opened the book again. It couldn’t be nothing more than a coincidence that he shared a surname with these people.

As far as Jack knew, he had no Irish blood in his veins and the cabin was nothing more than a vacation home his parents had brought years ago. Besides, if he had had any connection to this village, his father would had told him ... right?

A sting of doubt crept into Jack's confidence and his smile fell and turned into a frown, “this is so –”

A branch snapped behind him and Jack was startled. He sat up with a ponding heart, searching for Mrs. Bennet amongst the trees. He suddenly noticed that the sun had long since set behind the trees and he checked his phone.

17:58. How long had he been here…?

The battery blinked and Jack's concern intensified when the phone died out between his hands and the light it had delivered was turned off. The sound of broken branches returned, now closer and Jack looked around with all his nerves on his sleeves.

He squinted in the beginning dark, but found no crazy axe murder or bloodthirsty werewolf. Jack shook his head and felt like hitting himself with a stick or something. The fairytales and legends had gotten his senses up on high alert and made him afraid of the dark.

"You're not a little kid," he mumbled sourly to himself and tried to overcome his irrelevant fear, "it’s just stories, get a grip, man!"

Jack took a deep breath, counted down from ten and felt how he slowly began to calm down. This book was just fiction.

Just bedtime stories made by fucked up people, for fucked up children and even though they were scary, and absolutely not appropriate for children, Jack had seen movies and read books much bloodier and scarier than this rubbish.

A sudden impulse made Jack look up again with zeal. Maybe it was Aster out searching for him. Of course! It had to be his boyfriend walking around the forest looking for him, Jack had been gone all day after all and his phone had been without signal and now as good as dead.

It was only logical that Aster or a villager walking his dog, had stumbled upon Jack's hiding spot, or something like that.

“I’m here!” Jack shouted loudly and huddled out of his hiding place. He waved his arms in case Aster could see him, even though Jack couldn’t spot him and walked a few steps forward, “Aster, you're there?”

He received no reply, but Jack’s hopes only grew when he saw the silhouette of a child behind one of the trees. Probably one of the village children, who were out playing by the forest edge.

"Hey, kid!"

The child didn’t answer him, but waved friendly. Jack took it as a good sign and walked toward her. He could see the outline of a skirt, so it had to be a little girl, but otherwise she was almost impossible to see in the midst of the forest’s heavy shade.

Jack squinted. Was she just very far away or were the forests just really dark this time at day? He came a little closer and entered the forest's dense foliage-hangings.

After his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw glimpses of the girl's bright eyes before she suddenly turned around with swinging locks and ran away.

“Hey, wait!” Jack yelled and ran after her, “wait, I’m just lost, don’t go! Promise I’m no pedo!”

But the girl continued her retreat and continued to be five steps ahead of him. Jack ran after her and had to slow down as he almost stumbled over a tall tree root. He heaved breathlessly for air and looked up.

He expected the girl to be gone, but was surprised when he saw she had stopped as well. Jack lifted an eyebrow. She was waiting for him?

He took tentative one step forward and she took a step back. He took two steps and she imitated him. Jack's lip twitched into a wry smile. He had feared the girl might had been afraid of him and run off, but it would seem that she was just playing with him.

Jack liked games and at some point she had to go home to the village again and lead him along, so why not play the game until then?

He stepped a little forward and hid behind the nearest tree trunk. He sneaked to the other side of the big tree and peered around. The girl was hiding behind her own tree and caught his eye. She giggled and hid again before she jumped on to the next tree.

Jack couldn’t help but laugh himself and ran over to the next tree. They repeated this pattern a few times until Jack got lucky and came close enough to catch the girl. He quickly jumped out of hiding and expected to scare the girl behind her tree, but there was no one there.

Confused he turned around a few times before he found her again – now behind a three nearly four meters ahead. She giggled and Jack scratched his head dumbfound.

“How did ya…?”

"Jack," she whispered almost inaudible and ran away.

Back at the tree, Jack hadn’t moved as much as an inch. Frozen. His heart felt as if it had forgotten how to beat. How to pump the blood through his system and his breathing had stopped all together.

It wasn't that she knew his name. Everyone knew gossip ran fast in small closed societies like these – no, it was that she had said his name in a way so familiar and knowing, that it had knocked the teen to the ground.

Jack knew it was impossible. That it couldn’t be real or possible in any world and never could have any reason behind it, but the treacherous hoped grew in him still.

He knew it couldn’t be her. One, because he had never known her and two, because they had never met before, but the way she had called his name had touched something so deep in him that he thought he would break.

She had the soft edge of their mother’s voice.

“…Jill?”

She turned her head in his direction and spun around with outspread skirts, as to show of her miraculous existence, before she waved sweetly at him and ran away. Jack felt his legs begin by themselves, felt his body set into leaps and speed up with new strength.

Jack ran faster than he had done before in his life and he refused himself to stop again. He couldn’t lose his little sister.

Never again.

Darkness fell silent around him and made the forest dense and shady. Jack jumped over the protruding roots and bent under the low overhangs branches. He avoided the dark tree trunks at the last minute, ignored the forest thorns and bare branches that tore his pants and hands until they bled.

She turned her head to make sure he still pursued her and all around him, he seemed to hear her hushed voice, whisper his name again and again. More voices joined her's and Jack shook his confused head and heard the blood roaring in his ear, as his body work to increase his speed.

“Jill, wait!” he shouted desperately and bumped his shoulder against a tree trunk. He ignored the pain and stumbled forward. He thought for a moment that he saw double when another little girl showed up at his younger sister's side.

He soon realized that there were actually two of them now, as they moved individually and the other girl's hair was shorter and something that looked like wings protruding from her back. The two girls giggled and disappeared behind a cluster of trees.

He could hear his own breathing like that of a bellow, as he jumped over the intertwined trees they had just passed and jumped down. Jack uttered a repulsed shout in protest when his boots disappeared in water to the thighs.

A green lake stretched out in front of him and was framed by trees as a living fence, barely kept upright by the coarse roots that stood exposed, where the ground had slipped and sunk into the lake.

Jack shivered from the cold water that bit his thigh and tried to get back up from where he had jumped down. The mud loosened under his muddy boots and he fell back. He struggled to stay upright and avoid an involuntary dip, when Jill's voice sounded once again.

The water sloshed violently as he turned around and caught a glimpse of her behind an old hollow tree halfway submerged in the lake. She allowed him to catch a glimpse of her before she turned around again with a sweet laughter and disappeared out of sight.

Jack pressed his lips together and tried to think of something other than the water’s harsh bite, as he bit the sour lemon and waded toward the hollow tree. Reminded himself that it would be worth it in the end.

His boots made thick muddy imprints as he began his ascent and moisture soaked his sleeves as he pulled himself up with help from the branches of a wet pine tree.

He took one last look back at the forest lake and thought for a moment he sensed something that looked like a road far behind the tree line, when Jill and the other girl regained his attention with their haunting giggling.

They cried out in joy and laughter as he continued to pursuit them. He quickly forgot all about the road behind him and followed a self-created path with thundering boots, now heavy with mud and water. He picked up speed as the forest floor started to decrease.

The girls disappeared behind two logs.

“Wait!” Jack shouted and wanted to cry out again, but lost his voice as the ground disappeared under him and he fell down a slope. Involuntarily Jack made a somersault and rolled helplessly down without control, as earth whirled around him and the sky kept popping up and disappearing before his eyes.

Roots, rocks and thorns tore his arms as he threw them up to protec his head and the slope seemed to go on forever, until the ground suddenly lay still and Jack rolled onto his back.

He panted battered and breathlessly, waiting for the world to stop turning around like crazy and sat up between the moss and dead leaves. The half-hidden sky soon ceased to dance before his eyes and his stomach calmed down, as his head stopped spinning and he regained his sense of direction.

Jack staggered to his feet one leg at a time and felt the leaves fall out of his hair and clothes. A lonely clearing spread out in front of him and let a bit of the last light down through the bare treetops.

The strange heat seemed to be almost compressive here and all of the trees were old, bony and covered with a smooth layer of moss and fungi. Jack looked around for traces of his sister and the other girl, but found nothing.

“Jill!” he shouted and heard how his voice was swallowed up by the forest. Jack picked a leaf out of his collar and stepped further into the clearing. The moss dipped softly under his boots like a thick carpet and the dying sunlight seemed to drench everything with its red glow.

"Jill?" he asked quietly into the dark and got no response in return. A crisp crackling sounded from under his boots and Jack raised his foot to the sight of a group of crushed mushrooms. A ring of white fungus ran around the clearing and framed it in a natural circle.

If Jack hadn’t read Jamie's creepy book, he might had found it magical, but all he could think of right now were fairies with sharp teeth and long claws.

It suddenly occurred to him that he had left the book somewhere behind him he in his panic, but he couldn’t take care of that right now and the idea of the book soon drowned in the quivering trains of thought that threatened to drown him completely.

He had reached the middle of the clearing now and looked around for the slightest trace after his sister.

His eyes peered into the forest’s bar-like tree trunks and found the outline of a tall man. Jack's smile returned and he stepped toward Aster.

His joy and relief was soon turned into confusion as the silhouette, very similar to his lover, stepped forward with a self-importance and graceful walk. The body movements were all wrong and the man moved with an elegance Aster would never have been able to muster even if he had wanted to.

Jack’s own steps slowly went from forward going to reverse and he watched with a mixture of childlike fascination and growing uneasiness, as the silhouette left the darkness of the forest.

Bare ash-gray feet made no sound, as the man moved across the moss-covered forest floor and the low branches, heavy with vines, lifted themselves to make room for the human-like creature.

Dark gauzy robes as black as night and heavy as the shadows around them, hung elegantly on the man's lean body and opened in a deep V-neck, showing a grey hairless chest.

Jack's burgeoning understanding grew in pace with the stranger's entree and the teen continued his slow recession, as two golden gray eyes pierced him like a bug on a needle with their intensity.

Jack's subconscious mind recognized the creature in front of him by reputation, but his stubborn brain continued to be in denial and ignored what his eyes was telling him, until the sight of the two black wings behind the man's back finally forced Jack’s senses to its knees.

“No way…” the teen murmured in a mix of fear and deep agony, “you’re just a fairytale. Kozmotis isn’t real…”

The fairy prince stopped his gentle progress and elevated one of his hairless eyebrows in mild interest. As he was standing there, barely a meter from Jack, he was pretty much three heads taller than the small teen and studied Jack from the edge of his prominent nose with half lidded eyes.

The fairy tilted his head in something that could only be interpreted as ... curiosity.

"I'm surprised a mere human like yourself is familiar with my old name. How _intriguing_ ,” the man retorted with a velvet voice, spilling like liquor from his thin gray lips. Jack would probably have laughed at the absurdity of the fairy's British accent, hadn't it been for the situation's grave severity.

"But Perhaps a more suitable introduction is in order," he continued. The fairy price didn’t bow to Jack, but a slight nod with the head nevertheless indicate some sort of greeting that both seem respectful, but also gloating.

“Now days I go by the name, 'Pitch Black'.”

Jack had no idea what to do with that piece of information, but politeness seems to be the fairy’s flow, so Jack jumped on board, "uh, my name’s Jack Overland ... um ... your _majesty?"_

Should he address him differently? Jack had never met a royal before or paid much attention in history class when it came to European kings, so he had no idea. Your fairyness? Mr. forest Lord? Sire tall, handsome and British accent? Wait…what?

A light laughter like the sound of rustling leaves and the wind whistling in the night, sounded deeply from the fairy’s gray chest and Jack smiled awkwardly. Without Jack’s notice, the fairy had decreased the distance between them and Jack took a step backwards in shock.

That seems to amuse the fairy and he stepped into the ring of mushrooms without as much as crushing a single one, "don’t be afraid, Jack."

Jack scoffed, but moved back nonetheless as the other creeped closer. Regardless of how the fairy positioned himself, half of his face continued to be in shadow. He began to circle Jack and his bright eyes shone as an eclipse. Followed Jack's every move.

Jack frowned, "where's my sister?"

The fairy ignored him, circling him still and Jack moved out of the way when the man tried to catch a strand of his hair. Grey lips stretching out in a mocking smile.

"Relax, Jack. I'm not gonna hurt you ... _much_ ," the last was said with a crocked smile that made goosebumps form on Jack's skin and he gathered the courage he still held.

"I'm not afraid of you."

"Lying dosn't suit you, Jack," the fairy replied with hands folded behind his back and his long sharp face contorted into something that looked like mild amusement. Jack quickly turned around as the fairy almost got behind him.

It slowly began to dawn on Jack that he hadn’t heard any of the fairy’s footsteps. It almost seemed as if he hovered above the ground, completely silent and gliding like a shadow. As a shark on land.

"You think so, huh?" Jack said to gain himself time. Got the conversation going and tried to listen for cars or any indications that could tell him how far he was from the road or human habitation. Had he come in from the right or left the side of the road he saw earlier?

Pitch watched him with endless patience and stopped his wandering, "of course I do, I'm a darkling-fairy, we know that kind of thing. Fear is one of the things I know the best."

He suddenly moved up to Jack without the slightest of sounds and Jack stumbled back in surprise.

"You fear the forest fairies, Jack and it is wise of you," Pitch said knowingly and lifted a hand toward Jack's face. Jack stared at the dark pointy nails and gulped loudly as Pitch laid one against his cheek. The slightest pressure and he would puncture the skin.

"And since you know my old name, you must know why we’re here, what drives this village of humans and their fear. Their fear of me and mine," he whispered and leaned in as to drown Jack in his shadow.

"Is this because of Nightlight?" Jack asked angrily, pissed off by the thought of getting killed because of some dead person’s stupid deeds and recalled the content of the book, "because of that history ..."

Pitch pulled away and Jack could breathe a little easier.

A strange sweet smell had hung around the looming man and the teen couldn’t help but notice how awfully familiar it seemed. Pitch pulled an old tome out of his robe, waved it teasingly.

"Oh, this?" he asked in a playful tone, holding it before the teen. He began to scroll through it old pages, the stopped to read and Jack knew almost for certain, that it was the Overland story the man was looking down on.

"Such a particular little fairytale. The good, but helpless man, goes out too safe his family from their pitiful life and get ensnared by the simple promise of gold – tricked by an evil fairy. A fairy that soon curses his innocent son and dooms his family to extinction by the hands of their own neighbors. Such a tragic story, an important moral to learn and admonitory to teach little human children, if not parents – BUT I cannot help noticing a few missing _details..._ "

He slammed the book shut with a bored expression and looked at Jack out of the corner of his eye. Jack realized to his great vexation, that his curiosity had gotten the best of him and made him stay and listen to the fairy, rather than trying to escape while the fairy was busy reading.

He looked up again and discovered Pitch was now right in front of him. An open smile on his lips and attentive eyes. Looking shokingly gentle. "Do you want to know the truth, Jack?" he offered in a genuinely manner, “about your ancestors…or maybe your own family?”

Jack felt his heart beat faster and the fairy’s outstretched a hand, offering him to take it. Jack reached out to it per automation, but then pulled his hand back in a moment of reason. The fairy prince laughed with a cracking laughter and moved quickly as a shadow behind him and grabbed Jack's shoulders.

Held him captive and whispered into his ear.

"The peasant didn’t meet my mother by accident or vicious plan from her side. He knew where to find my people and made the deal with her long before the family lost everything. That he stalled to fulfill his part of the agreement is no lie, but trust me, Jack. He wasn't nearly as reluctant to sell his youngest son to me, as the stories states."

Jack shuddered and listened like his life depended on it. Pitch's voice crept into his head like a snake and he could hear the smile in his voice. The sweet smell almost smothering him.

"And as for sweet Nightlight? We might have ended up as enemies, but he was my lover long before he decided to reject me and suddenly play holy. I blame the villagers. Incompetent people can place such dangerous ideas in the head of a young insecure boy. The fact he grew up as half fairy among them, didn’t exactly help his life as a villager or acceptance among them either. They were more than willing to sacrifice the Overland family when they discovered I couldn’t be burned away. And as for your parents ..."

"You killed them," Jack whispered, the certainty almost smashing him to pieces.

“I took them in. The ones with Nightlight’s inherited fairy blood took place among me as my people and the others…well,” he chuckled, “they are still part of us, just not as fairies.”

Jack caught the sound of whispering voices in the darkness, low, but high-pitched wails of agony scratching the inside of his brain and he groaned as he clutched his head. Covered his ears in pain. But no hands could keep the sound out of his head and he jammed his jaw as the volume only grew.

"Stop it, stop it!"

The haunting voices continued to grow in strength and Jack opened his eyes. Saw them. Eyes in the dark watching him with malicious glee or sorrow, all of them part of the darkness dancing around them.

The living shadows moved closer and molded in and out of each other in a sea of shadow bodies. Faces as black as night and distorted in bestial mindless expressions, returned the gaze of his widened eyes. Not a trace of humanity was left in them, not even in the small childlike shadows.

Jack pulled free of the fairy's grip and felt tears forming at the thought of his father or mother being among the whispering flock.

“What do you want from me!?”

Pitch scoffed and got a harder and more determined expression as he towered over Jack, “maybe I want what is mine, what was promised me. I want you, Jack Overland.”

Jack widened his eyes and decided this was his cue. Fuck this shit!

Pitch chuckled humored at the sight of his fearful expression, "a bit scared are we? Running won’t do you any good, Jack."

Maybe not, but Jack was of the belief that you could always run away from your problems if your back was free and he sticked to this philosophy without a second’s hesitation. He turned 180 degrees on his heel and decided to run for it, when the fairy made an almost imperceptible motion with his hand behind the teen.

Jack cried out when one of the shadows shaped into a tentacle and twisted itself around his feet like a whip. Jack fell on his face and turned around quickly as the shadows began to drag him toward the ever so patient Pitch Black.

The brunette kicked of his soaked boot in an attempt to escape, but the shadow just crawled further up his leg and several other shadows joined it. Before Jack could even begin to comprehend he had actually been hijacked by something as unbelievable as shadows, he was already lying before the feet of the fairy.

“No, n-no, wait!” Jack protested in panic as the fairy seated himself between his spread legs and hovered over him like his own personal nightmare. Jack tried to kick and fight with his fists like Aster had showed him, but the shadows just seized his wrists and ankles.

Spread him out on the forest floor and offered him to the fairy like a meal on a silver-plate. A gray hand lowered towards his face and Jack turned his head to the side with a scared sound. Scrunched his eyes tight together.

Gentle but sharp fingers placed themselves against his cheek and a smile could be heard in the haunting voice above him, “shy without the darkness and sheets to shield you, Jack?”

The hand rummaging gently through his hair and the sweet smell filled Jack’s mind and nostrils again. Now that it covered him like a blanket and Pitch held his face firmly, Jack suddenly recalled from where he’d encountered the strange scent before.

His eyes opened immediately and his head turned toward the fairy with an expression that could only be described as absolute horror. There was no doubt. This was the guy from his dream. The realization hit Jack like a hammer in his guts and got his pupils to dilate in fear.

Pitch’s eyes closed in bliss and small sharply pointed teeth peeped out from between the thin lips. A second hand started to caress his thighs and Jack whimpered with a sharp intake of air. The fairy chuckled.

"When I discovered that the last Overland had ventured into my land, my intention was simply to reap another sacrifice and be done with this boring malaise," Pitch admitted and smiled almost gently at Jack's attempts to wriggle free.

His nails bit into Jack's flesh, "but I must admit I hadn’t expected such ... warm a welcome. But I must confess it pleased me."

“P-please, I leave the cabin, I-I leave your land, I promise, I – _don’t!_ ”

“You’re a true reflection of Nightlight,” the fairy prince continued without giving any indication he had heard a word of Jack's pleading, "just lovelier."

Jack's protests became a stifled scream as the fairy shut him up with a kiss. Jack turned his face in disgust and fear, which just seemed to excite the fairy more. A nausea sweet taste filled the boy’s mouth like tar, making his head light and his nerves burning like they were on fire.

Black dots began to dance before his eyes and he coughed strangled, as the fairy began exploring his body.


	9. He gives his harness bells a shake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys  
> having some... _mix_ feeling about this chapter  
>  it will be my first ever written smut, but on the other hand it's also a rape scene  
> hmmm, i let you decide if it's decent or not hope you...enjoy?
> 
> * * *

It would be a lie to say he had never been this scared before in his life.

The long thin fingers and skillful hands explored Jack’s body and brought his mind off balance toward a place where fear, humiliation and dread prevailed. Jack was terrified of what this fairy, this creature had in store for him and most of all, Jack feared how far Pitch would go.

Jack fought and wriggled to get free, which just seems to arouse the fairy even more. The more Jack struggled, the more eager the exploratory hands got and Jack cried out for help when his hoodie was pulled over his head and thrown out among the ferns.

The clammy warm climate and the damp moss under him stood in stark contrast to the fevered fairy, who loomed over him and the cold that gripped Jack's interior.

The shadow holding his hands in place had let go for a second to allow Pitch to remove Jack's hoodie and now t-shirt, and Jack grabbed the fairy in an attempt to turn him over and get a chance to get up from his locked position.

Pitch just grinned and pinned him down with his weight, a hand coming up and grabbing Jack’s own two. Holding them above his head and leading the other grey hand around his neck before he had a chance to fight back.

"Stop it!"

Jack had no doubts concerning what the fairy wanted from him. He knew, like every other creature with a simple libido insight and ear for the whispers that often ran between the boys in the locker room, that he was going to be raped and abused here in this god forsaken place.

And he couldn’t do anything about it. Jack was afraid, but the fear ran deeper than what the act entailed.

It was what came after that drove his brain to the madness of terror.

Would pitch kill him? Strangle him and simply be done with it, like it was common practice among rapists who wanted their fun and avoid the law? Off course, Jack knew no human law could punish a fairy – and who would believe Jack anyway? – but the chances of dying was still high bet.

The picture in Jamie’s book of the young girl being devoured by the flock of fairies, played across his retina and twisted his fantasy to the nerve-racking. Would Pitch eat him afterwards? Would he do it while Jack was still breathing? Di it quickly, or slowly and painfully?

Jack had no idea and his strength began to fade. The fairy's hand held his desperate hands in an iron grip that extended far beyond human strength and Jack could might as well had tried to break out of stone shackles.

His kicking legs became heavier the more he exhausted himself and his heart was pounding so hard he thought he was going to faint.

Jack gasped for breath, aimed with a last kick meant for Pitch head, but missed. The fairy prince entrusted Jack’s hands to one of the shadows and waited for Jack to tire himself out.

It took a far shorter time than Jack had hoped to last and soon he was completely exerted and laid still to catch his heaving breath.

The memory of another time, where Jack had been left without the ability to breath either, overwhelmed him to the core and made him shake violently. Captivated by the sight of Jack’s dread and heavy smell of fear, the fairy sighed and cupped his cheek.

Buried his face in Jack’s locks.

Jack didn’t resist this time, frozen in his own state of pure panic, suddenly recalling a simple, but traumatic memory. He could taste the snow now, cold and pungent on his tongue and heard its soft crunching in his ear, like the break of thunder.

Jack was filled with fear, but fear in its pure form was a phenomenon he had first come to know as a six-year-old. It had been a long summer that year and as it often happens, it was followed by an even harsher winter.

Jack had gone out in the snow with the permission of his parents and wrapped in various jackets, mittens, bonnets, scarfs and ski pants, he had wobbled hassled and heavy into the white world.

As the active child Jack was, he hadn't wasted a second and went out to explor all the wonders winter had to offer, He had soon wandered off and left the other children behind, in search of adventure.

But it would seem that Jack in his lust for adventure, had forgotten how the surrounding area had looked before the snow had covered all its bays and holes. His own forgetfulness had made him reckless and soon he had found himself falling through a little hill of snow and into a cavity between a cluster of trees.

The snow had swallowed him like a hungry monster and his whole world had become white, cold and unyielding. Leaving him little room to move in.

Jack had shouted and struggled to climb back up, but the soft snow gave no impetus for him to climb on and the more he pushed the soft snow, the more compact it became and harder to move.

Jack’s world became a blue hole above him and his drenched layers of jackets and pants became weighed down by the snow that melted on his body.

Soon Jack had used up all his strength and had been too tired to move. Caught in his white prison, caught with his muffled cries and tears that stung his cheeks in the cold, Jack found himself face to face with the purest of all fear.

The fear of death.

It had been late in the evenings before Jack's screams had ceased in lack of response and he had settled down. Lost, scared, hungry and haggard having struggled for so many hours.

That was the day the fear had bared its open face before Jack and made him older than he should. Jack had understood that death was the certainty that followed when you gave up on fighting for your life and the child surrendered to his cold self-dug grave.

If a random bunch of kids hadn’t come across the hole on top of his prison and had decided to dig him out in jest, Jack could might as well have been one of those missing children, who’s corpse first reappears back in the spring when the snow retreats and let go of its treasures.

Jack never told his parents about the incident. Without a worry in the world, they had welcomed him home just in time for dinner, in the belief that he had had a fun day in the snow.

And Jack - like most children his age - had quickly shook the near-death experience of him like a wet jacket and stored it away deep in his subconscious for when he got older and had time to dwell on it. Meaning he pretended like nothing and told them nothing.

Fearing that his parents might get angry if he told them he had buried themselves in the snow and almost died, he kept it to himself and with time forgot about it all. Left it for another time and another day. A day that seemed to have caught up with him now.

Burning lips captured his tears and Pitch brought him back into the present again with his warmth, his intense eyes and insistently rubbing against his body.

Jack protested, but the fairy ignored him, leaned down and nibbled on Jack's neck with sharp teeth. A shocked noise escaped the boy's quivering lips.

“Please let me go, you don’t have –‘”

“Shhh,” Pitch shushed with what could almost be taken for a gentle voice, if it hadn’t been for the sinister edge, “the transformation has already begun. I'll make you mine, you’ll see.”

Jack didn’t want to see anything and turned his head away to at least show some reluctance in his locked state. His head had begun to feel fuzzy. What transformation?

The fairy chuckled, "relax, let me show you my world, Jack."

Pitch stroked his face and let his hand wander down along the visible marks he had left on his neck across Jack’s trembling chest and down to his side where it rested firmly on his slender hip.

Jack opened his mouth to scream for help, but the fairy beat him to it and kissed him forcefully. Caught off guard, the boy's mouth stayed wide and the fairy’s burning tongue gained entrance without a fight.

Jack struggled, used up the last he had in him and end up moving around with no real plan or escape.

The old hopelessness from when he had been caught under the snow grew into his present state and as the cold once had dulled him, he slowly calmed down. The hot tongue in his mouth making him feel a comforting warmth he couldn't remember having ever felt before.

The foul taste that had filled his mouth after the fairy’s first stolen kiss returned, but this time Jack’s senses found it cleaner, sweeter and almost sedative. As the kiss deepened, Jack's mind became overwhelmed with strange thoughts and unfamiliar emotions.

His mind and panicked thoughts clouded. The fairy cooed in satisfaction, as Jack stopped struggling and actual started to return the kiss. The fairy opened his Jack's legs further with a knee and pressed against his crotch.

The teen released a high-pitched keen and received a malicious smirk in return. The fairy allowed him a second of air and Jack moaned as the hot tongue captured his left ear. The wantonly sound of his own doing made Jack wake up instantly.

He returned to his senses and struggled again, this time making the fairy pull back. He frowned and took a possessive grip in the brown locks.

"There is no use fighting it, Jack. The blood in you has started to wake, you feel it, I know you do. Just let go of your humanity and let me in, sweet Jack.”

Pitch moved to kiss him again, but Jack turned his head to the side and avoided him. The fairy just chuckled and moved his hand south. Pitch ignored Jack's scared pleas to stop and started to lick a hot brand along his jaw to his ear.

Jack moaned in a mix of fright and sobs when the grey hand forced his head back with a tight grip in his hair and caught his lips. The sharp teeth draw blood from Jacks bottom lip and he tasted his own life on Pitch's tongue.

Copper and the dark sweet flavor mixed together.

Pitch turned the boy’s head as he pleased and sucked on his earlobe, licking the shell and whispered heated words Jack couldn’t comprehend.

Jack knew he should be trying to escape, fight or at least shout for help, but a strange burning sensation had spread out though his limbs and made everything draw near before Jack’s widened eyes, turning everything clearer and almost painfully close.

Jack was overwhelmed by the sound of his own heartbeat that struck in line with the night's beating wings and the feeling of moss that sprouted under his back.

Nearby he could feel the fall of a leaf like a roll of thunder and somewhere over him, a drop of rainwater climbed the branches, shining like a fallen star.

The roots of the trees sang to him from deep below the ground, where the roots hummed as they drank the nectar of the soil.

He could hear them grow ...

He felt how the fairy’s hand began to stroke his naked stomach, the long burning fingers ghosting over muscle, that jumped and clenched by the slightest of contact. The warm feeling consumed Jack’s senses and the sweet smell almost dazed him.

It became intoxicating, coursing through his veins like hot oil and down to pool in his stomach and lower, lower still. Jack arched and gasp at the touches. Pitch’s smirk grew larger and his hand slowly moved up in circles and started to play with his nipples.

Jack drew his legs to him by the feeling and his sensitive body grinded against the fairy, desperate for friction and release from the sweet intensity.

Jack’s body became his entire world and he could nothing but obey it. The fairy kissed his stomach and felt how the fear was replaced with desire and hunger.

The fairy blood had started to work and Nightlight's magic rose to the surface, as the boy’s skin paled and the blood veins slowly turned from red to blue.

Jack moaned shamelessly to the feeling of Pitch’s hand adding pressure on his stomach, fingers kneading into the soft flesh, stroking his skin in rousing circles and working their way to the hem of his jeans and boxers.

Jack heard his own breath hitch, as the fabrics was yanked down in one single move. Exposed and uncovered like this and completely at the creature’s mercy, the previous fear began to trickle in through the cracks of his clouded mind.

Pitch soothed him with his fevered kisses, distracting him from his instincts of fights with one hand massaging his necks and another moving towards his length.

The fairy began to rub the sensitive area and Jack gasped, arched his back completely of the damp ground and widened his eye to the eternal sight of the stars. Pitch stroke him in long movements, pressing down more, rubbing a little faster and conquered Jack’s gasping lips once again.

Jack was on the brick of crying now. Left with no will to flee or strength to even lift his arms, he felt how the insanity crept in on him. Turning him to nothing but a mess of moans and wanton sounds.

No one had ever touched him there before; Aster had never gone this far and Jack felt shame for not fighting more.

Jack couldn't believe this was happening to him and it shocked him that he felt a warm stir build up in his abdomen, an eager want to move and meet the looming fairy’s movements.

Jack’s doubts drilled inside his mind, but no plea could make the fairy stop and Jack found that he soon lost the connection with his fears of intimacy. Jack cried out as he came and fell limp on the moss with regret and disgust tainting his heart.

A disillusioned hope that the fairy was done, was shattered, as Pitch licked the semen from Jack’s trembling skin and grip his thighs, pulling them forcefully apart and gaining complete access.

The boy tensed in shock at the sudden exposure, knowing what would surely follow and tried to close his legs.

The fight was lost even before it began and the prince’s grip proved unrelenting. Jack lamented with fresh fear pumping in his now blue veins and a high-pitched keen from the back of his throat filled the night as the fairy grinded up between his thighs.

Jacks half-formed protests turned to an alarmed shout, as he felt of a digit pressing against his entrance. It pressed in despite Jack’s pleas and started to move in and out. It was soon followed by another and Jack felt how his inner tissue burned from the friction.

The fairy kissed his cheek and smiled as he bit the shell of his ear, “just relax, there is natural fluids in you that will make it easier if you allow it”.

Jack had absolutely no idea what the fairy was talking about, but tried to relax nevertheless. Getting through this as fast as possible and just give the fairy what he wanted, so Jack could curl up and die.

To his surprise and utter disbelieve, the hurt stopped the second he let go and a lubricate felled his inside, making it slick and easy for the now three digits to move and scissor him.

The shock over this strange new body function was soon forgotten, as the fairy found the little bundle of nerves inside him, making him see stars.

The fingers began to slides in and out in a maddening phase, creating a sensation along with the continuously hit of the spot, that walked the fine line between pain and pleasure.

Tears rolled from Jack’s cheeks and the fairy leaned over him, licking them and distracted him with a deep kiss. Jack met his burning kiss and tried to loos himself in it and distract himself from what he knew was coming.

His shallow breath turned to panting and a low growl of hunger rolled in the prince's chest, both frightening and arousing Jack to the core. He whimpered as the fingers was removed and left him with a hollow empty feeling.

“No,” jack whispered weakly as Pitch straighten up and seized Jack's trembling thighs, pushing his knees up near his chest. Something much larger and scarier than a finger pressed against him now and Jack felt everything else than ready.

The shadow around his wrist killed his attempt to wriggle his sore hands free and the grey fingers digged into his pale thighs.

“Please don’t, please…please d –”

The black robes slid down Pitch’s firm grey shoulders and his torso shone in the night like cold stone. The shadow robe dissolved like smoke and removed the last hindrance between them.

The black hair almost seemed like black branches in the eyes of the boy and he trembled under the gaze of those shining eyes, the epitome of an eclipse.

 _“Mine_ ,” Pitch growled and pushed in.

Jack screamed in pain and his back arched in a painful bow. Tears streamed down his eyes and his hands clenched tightly. His insides burned like they would tear and the head of the fairy’s length pushed against Jack's stomach.

A broken sob left Jack’s lips and he shook in the intensity of the pain.

The fairy exhaled in bliss and enjoyed the boy’s tight inside to the fullest. He waited for the boy to regain his breath, remember how to relax and felt how the boy’s inside coated his length and used the awakened magic inside the human to adjust to his size.

Jack cried out when the fairy started to move. The pain was unbearable and made his body scream for an easy escape. Maybe even the sweet relief of death.

The suicidal thoughts were shot down instantly, as a new sensation filled him and colored his nerves. An intense pleasure began to build up, as Pitch moved into him again and the pain was washed out and drown in pleasure. The friction starting to do its wonder.

After a few unhurried thrusts, the fairy hit the spot, continued to go for it with every trust and picked up pace. Jack moaned like a million-dollar whore in the increasing intensity of the sensations. He arched his back, his mouth opened in a silent scream.

Pitch's growl filled the night and his teeth attacked the newly exposed skin in hunger. Jack felt like he was being buried in the burning snow again. Ice so cold it scalded his skin and pressed in on him like a living cage. A hand moved from his hip to his cock and stoked in pace with the fairy’s trust.

Jack lost himself to the warm feeling building up inside him and the insane sensitivity his body had submitted to.

Everything was too much, everything too close and all around him he felt bright eyes watching him, devouring him with their blind hungry stares.

Jack moaned and wailed in pain and pressure as long nails digged into his back and draw line to his thighs, chest and stretched arms. The lips and teeth that had covered his chest in marks and bites, stole Jack's ragged breath away and forced its entrance without consent.

Jack drowned and melted into the body above him, felt how he became nothing but an extension and at the same time part of the forest. In a strange vision, he saw his limps become trees, his flesh become reeds and his soul a thousand fireflies.

His heart beat in pace with the fairy prince’s and their lounges fueled the wind in the threes. The pale mushrooms lighted up like lanterns and he felt the underground water flow through the root of the trees and the pores of his back.

Jack came hard and felt Pitch follow him, roaring his name. His muscles tightening around the fairy in multiple contractions and the prince rode out the last waves of the orgasm.

His teeth, sunk deep into Jack’s neck, released him and Jack whimpered tiredly and closed his eyes to the feeling of Pitch's feather light kisses running up his jaw.

For the first time in Jack’s life he actually felt complete and wished nothing more than to stay part of this new reality. His eyes widened in wonder when two wings, like that of a butterfly, lifted from Pitch’s strong back and unfolded above them.

The strong black shimmering wingspan filled Jack’s world and became the star and moonless night sky. Pale gold lined the wings and they fluttered in ecstasy.

Jack’s mind became mesmerizing by the movement and without giving it a though, he reached to touch them, felt his hands and legs getting released by the shadows like thye knew he wouldn't leave or try to fight now.

“Jack,” Pitch whispered heated and Jack smiled dazed as his pale hand almost glowed like freshly fall snow compared to the black deeps of the wings he was reaching for.

Then the world collapsed in the blinding light of two headlights.


	10. To ask if there is some mistake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys  
> Hope the wait hasn't been too long - the show must go on and when I say show I mean Jack's suffering  
> Sorry not Sorry  
> Leave a comment if you feel like it.  
> Enjoy?
> 
> * * *

The two headlights blinded Jack and he clapped his hands over his eyes with a groan, forgot all about the two black mesmerizing wings above him and curled up like a ball.

Pitch hissed furiously at the sharp light and like a shadow driven away by a child’s flashlight, he pulled away and left Jack to hide in the shade of the trees.

Jack squinted painfully after having been in the dark for so long and sat up hassled. His whole body cried out in pain and all his muscles were aching and overrun with red lines and marks.

He registered the faint sound of the car that honked and began, almost in a trance, to gather his spread clothes together, pulling it over his aching skin and got up on shaking legs.

To say he was sore would be an understatement and he limped toward the light.

"Jack!"

The teen lifted a hand to halfhearted greeting and used the other to shield his eyes as he walked toward the sound of Aster. Jack heard the sound of a car door violently opened and boots running in his direction.

To Jack it seemed almost ironic that the road had been this close to him the entire time and he laughing humorless to himself before it changed into a sob.

Strong arms closed around him and Jack recognized the smell of his boyfriend and tired he lay his head against Aster’s broad chest. He wanted to cry, scream and lie down to sleep in Aster’s arms and never wake up again.

Aster stumbled over the words and asked a series of quick questions, Jack neither could nor had the strength to answer and just followed him back to the car and got in. He was still too sore to sit down and had to adjust, while Aster ran around the car and jumped into the driver's seat beside him.

"Jack, damn it - we've been looking for ya all day, ya know what time it is? Everyone’s worried and Tooth wanted call to the police and everything. When I didn’t find you, I went up to Jamie to see if you were there and can you believe it? Mrs. Bennet was shooting at me! With a real gun!"

Jack tried to get his breathing under control and keep up the wall that threatened to burst and release the tears. Aster was obviously angry with him, but Jack couldn’t take any more right now and failed to respond in order not to reveal his shaky voice.

Aster started the car, turned to him for an explanation and noted Jack’s messy hair and half-closed pants.

“Jack? What the hell happened to ya, mate?”

“I…I uhmm,” Jack stuttered insecure and didn’t know where to begin, "I was ... I r-ran into ..."

Jack swallowed hard, forcing the tears and sobbing back. Wouldn’t allow himself to break into small pieces and fall into the pit that threatened to devour him completely.

He tried to compose a clear explanation in his head Aster would understand, but didn’t know how. Jack didn’t even know how to explain what had happened in the first place! Even the word "rape" wouldn’t get over his lips and Jack stared ahead with a lost expression.

One sinister question continued to reverberate in his head like an insistent bell and he grabbed the seat so hard, his knuckles turned white.

Was it still rape if he’d liked it?

Jack became terrified of himself and touched his own lips. If he closed his eyes he could still feel Pitch’s hands on his hips and teeth biting his lower lip. See the burning light of his eyes in the dark and feel another body rocking in pace with his.

The memory made him strangely turned on and made him weak in a way he had never experienced before.

Aster was still waiting for a response and was getting restless, “Jack what the hell is it with ya!? What –”

“Pull the car to the side.”

Aster gave Jack a strange glance, but did as he said anyway. There was something about the toneless way Jack had said it that had got chills to run down Aster’s back and if he were to be honest, Jack was starting to frightened him.

He almost looked like a ghost as he sat there and his skin seemed almost transparent and pale as snow. Black and blue rings had begun to form under his eyes.

The car stopped by the roadside and Aster turned in his seat to get an explanation, when Jack left his own seat and crawled over to straddle him. Aster had NOT seen that coming and sat back, caught off guard with big eyes.

Jack took a deep ragged breath and decided to find out if he really had been raped or not.

Rape victims always turned touched and intimacy frightened afterwards, right? If it had been forced, Jack probably wouldn’t be able to implement anything with Aster and if he could that would mean ...

Aster blinked confused, as Jack leaned forward and kissed him with an almost desperate eagerness. His pale hands ran over Aster’s broad chest and Jack’s thighs latched around his lap. Aster had no idea what was happening, but returned the kiss nevertheless and tried to figure out what the hell was going on.

Aster immediately pushed Jack away and held him out safe arm's length, when Jack tried to unzip his jacket and stick his hand down his pants. What the ...?

”What are ya doing, why are ya…?”

Jack just looked down and his shoulders shook. Aster didn’t understand what this shameful facial expression were comming from and then noticed the hickeys.

Jack let out a broken sob, as Aster pushed his brown hair and hoodie collar back to examine the countless love bites and marks that covered Jack's neck and jaw.

Anger welled up in him and twisted his mind. Aster neither could nor would he believe it, but the evidence stood out clearly on his boyfriend’s skin and messy clothes. He could even smell it now.

Jack had cheated on him.

Jack seemed to see all this in his eyes and widened his brown eyes in horror. He rushed to cover the marks with a hand, “Aster, please – it wasn’t my fault, I swear!”

“Oh really?” Aster snarled and shoved Jack of him in anger, "you were completely unwilling and just decided to jump me as though it'd never happened, is that it?”

Jack uttered some unintelligible words and buried his face in his hands. Aster allowed him to settle back in the front seat without a word and grabbed the steering wheel harder than necessary. He turned the car back on and speeded up.

Tried to find a distraction from the urge to hit something.

He couldn’t believe it. He had been waiting for Jack to be ready and been the oh so patient and considerate boyfriend in a little over two years. And how was Jack rewarding again? By jumping into the arms of someone else and then doing it outside in a fucking forest!

An icy thought almost slammed the air out of Aster.

"Was it Jaime? Have you been fucking Jamie!?" he snarled furiously and increased the speed.

"No, not him ... I w-was raped," Jack retorted in a low voice and grabbed his hair as if in pain, “I-I think…”

“You _think!?_ ”

Jack didn’t answer and felt like he had to throw up. He forced himself to get a hold of himself and think about something else. Go to some happy place, if that such place even existed.

He looked down at his bruised hands and noticed how all his vein had become blue. Even the scratches and old blood seemed almost purple against his skin and it freaked him out a little.

Before his eye, the blue veins changed and became crystal blue rivers and his skin the crust of icy snow they ran in between. If he concentrated enough, he could almost hear the cold water gurgling and feel the snow that was falling from a grey sky.

Turned everything blue and white. Pure. The thought gave him a little peace and he concentrated on the idea, felt how it calmed him down and stared ahead as the temperature dropped around him.

Aster clenched his teeth, still in the middle of their discussion, “you think you was raped and then you wanna do it in the fucking car with me? What the fuck!”

Jack didn’t hear him, to mesmerized by the fact he could see Aster’s breath. Aster figured the conversation was going nowhere and concentrated on the road instead.

The betrayal burned Aster’s insides like a glowing piece of iron and he turned the car more violent than necessary and braked hard in front of the cabin.

He kept on clenching the steering wheel with a gruff face, long after Jack had left the car and tottered up to the cabin. Aster hit the steering wheel and grabbed his hair with a pained sigh.

What now?

He didn’t know and he didn’t know what to do with himself either. Beating up Jamie wouldn’t make up for this and Aster doubted that anything really could.

What Jack had done was heartbreaking, pretty much unforgivable and all he could think of was letting his anger out on someone and it was only a question of time before he planted a fist in the face of someone.

It could very well end up being Jack, but Aster couldn’t bear the idea of harming Jack. Even after he had cheated on him.

Should he break up with Jack now? Aster really didn’t know and the idea got part of his rage to fade. Made him miserable and queasy. He looked up at the cabin and decided that it was time to go in and face the others.

For his and Jack's sake, he would try to keep the others out of this, until they had figured it all out between the two of them.

The first thing that met him as he got into the warmth, was Sandy and North, who were about to pull on their jackets and boots. They both stopped at the sight of him. Clearly relived.

“Oh good, you here,” North sighed in relief and pulled Aster inside, while Sandy followed with a worried expression and looked questioningly up at Aster. He looked away.

"What happened?" North asked seriously.

Aster tried to come up with an answer, but ended up saying, "I found Jack."

That seemed no way detailed enough for them, but he didn't feel like explaining himself and Aster looked around, "where’s Tooth?"

"She ran after Jack when he stormed into the bathroom upstairs. He looked like something straight out of a war zone. _Shostakovich_. Is he okay?"

Aster didn’t know how he should respond and shrugged, “Its nothing, we just –”

”DO WE HAVE A FIRST AID KIT SOMEWHERE!?”

They all looked up aghast to the sight of Tooth looking down at them with dilated eyes from the staircase, "Jack’s hurt!"

"What do you mean hurt?" North asked deeply confused and Tooth ran down to rummage through the kitchen cabinets.

"He has a large bite wound on the collarbone and long claw-marks down the back and arms. His left wrist is sprained…" 

She found the first aid kit and looked at them with alarming concern, "it looks as if a shark has planted its teeth in his upper leg."

Aster froze immediately and felt how the world fell apart around him. What had he done?

Tooth almost jumped him, “what happened out there!?”

Aster gulped, “I uhmm, I found jack and he…he said he was…raped.”

The others looked at him, absolutely horrified and Tooth waited for him to continue and got nothing. She lifted perplexed her hands to her hair, "and you did _nothing!?_ "

"I call the cops and ambulance," North said brusque and began typing on his phone with a rage that almost destroyed it, while Tooth returned upstairs in a hurry. Sandy began to trudge around in anxious circles and Aster were left in the middle of the living room without knowing what to do.

The last ten minutes played before his eyes like a bad sitcom and he found himself grabbing his head in regret.

Jack had been raped and he had blamed him for it. He hadn’t even given him a chance to explain himself. If Jack never wanted to see him again, Aster could hardly blame him for it.

Aster would give absolutely anything to travel back in time and hit himself with a fist right in the face – or better still, give the person who had touched and abused his boyfriend a proper beating.

Killing him couldn’t even begin to justify what he had done to his Jack.

He could faintly hear the sound of water being filled in a bathtub upstairs and got an uncomfortable picture of Jack's condition from what Tooth had told them.

What sick motherfucker could do such a thing? It made Aster see red and just the fact that he had only searched the area along the road by coincidence and out of pure spontaneity, made him clench his fist together.

Nails biting into his palm. What if he hadn’t stopped the car to run along the road and shouted for Jack? What if he had driven right pass him or worse – never stopped? The thought gave him chills and he shoved it out of his troubled head.

It was essentially that Jack was back in their safety.

The police would do the rest.

As in a reply to that thought, North returned to him and stuffed his phone in his pocket, "the ambulance will be here in an hour and the police will be here soon."

“They better, this psycho won’t get away with this,” Aster hissed low and glowered. North seemed to understand and patted his shoulder in sympathy with a grave nod. Sandy glanced up despairingly at the upper floor where Tooth was still attending Jack and his wounds.

Outside the window it suddenly began to snow ...

-

Jack stared up at the white-painted beams and tried to become one with the water in the bathtub.

The hot water had been like salt on his ripped skin, but Tooth had insisted that they had got to wash the soil and dirt out of his wound, or at least do something, until the ambulance arrived and Jack was too weak to protest.

Tooth had ignored his nudity and Jack was at this stage pretty much indifferent. He doubted that he could have undressed in front of anyone else than her anyway. Despite their almost similar age, Tooth had always acted like a mother to him and Jack felt safe in her care.

Tooth fussed around somewhere to his right and tried to gather some antibacterial packaging tubes while Jack tried to dissolve himself in the warm waters.

Despite its steamy surface and clear heat, it was as if the water didn’t warm him more than on the surface. Jack knew the water was hot, but felt no effect of it what so ever.

His skin remained pale and no flushing reached its surface, or allowed the heat into his interior.

All Jack could feel was cold, but not a cold that harmed him. Just sedating him. Like a hard core of ice, the hot water couldn’t melt nor could it reach into him. He stayed cold and the water stayed hot.

No charges, no meeting in the middle.

He maintained his eyes toward the ceiling, steely not to acknowledge the sight that had met him in the mirror when Tooth had helped him out of the dirty layers of clothes.

They had been able to wash the soil and the blood of his skin, but the long red lines, teeth marks and bruises remained.

The large bite mark that formed an arch on the inside of his thigh, had gotten Tooth to gasp in shock and Jack's stomach to turn. He couldn’t remember having been bitten, but the entire encounter with the fairy had also begun to blur and mix together.

All he remembered was Pitch Black's burning eyes, warm hands and whispering words. Jack knew something awful, but in many ways, incredible had occurred in that clearing, but couldn’t keep track of it.

This feeling of guilt facing Aster and disgust of himself, took up too much space in his head and made his guts curl up in shame.

Jack had never regarded himself as weak, but as things was now, he couldn’t remember ever having been strong either. He had lost something out there in the clearing and knew for certain that it wasn’t only his virginity.

He writhed and returned to his happy place. He thought of the clouds again. Heavy of cold and wide as huge gray sheep. He saw before him how they covered the sky and gathered in soft clusters.

How chunks of snow would fall from them and land on the ground without melting. Just drop and cover the ground, cover the world and make it pure in the name of winter.

Make Jack pure again ...

Tooth gathered the last bandages on top of the sink and began to look for a pair of scissors in the first aid kit, when she noticed how white lumps of snow began to land on the window pane.

She placed a hand against the cold glass and watched how the ground outside slowly became covered in snow and the wind shook the trees. Snow fell slightly but steadily and soon spread a covering layer over the dark earth.

Tooth bit her lip, her breath leaving condensation on the glass.

If this continued it would be more than just one hour before the ambulance arrived. She prayed that it wasn’t a blizzard they were to deal with and carried her remedies over to Jack.

She would bandage only the worst of the wounds for when the ambulance arrived, but now that something could indicates that it would be delayed, she decided to do what she could for Jack.

Jack let her bring him out of the bath and dry him with a towel. He was far away and had only eyes for the snow. Daydreamed of how he crumbled into crisp snowflakes and flew out among the other thousand glittering equals.

He would lay the wood in white and clean it with his spirit and freeze over the forest lake, until it was shiny and reflective like a mirror. Saw the forest lake before him, as if he was out there is this second.

A young man with stark white hair and ice-blue eyes looked up at him from the lake's reflection and Jack knelt against him. Went through the ice.

“You have to stay awake, Jack,” Tooth said in a soothing voice and dried his hair, “the ambulance will be here any minute now.”

She hoped.


	11. The only other sound’s the sweep

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys  
> Sorry the delay, but an important paper got in the way  
> hope you enjoy - leave a comment if you feel like it
> 
> * * *

They had waited patient for three hours, before they finally accepted the fact that the storm wasn’t gonna die out anytime soon.

Aster leaned against the cold window and returned his reflection's hopeless expression. Outside, everything was white and the wind's rustling could be heard in every corner of the cabin.

In Aster’s ears, it sounded like scornful laughter and he cursed the weather. Neither the police nor the ambulance was anything near them and Tooth had ended up making dinner after putting Jack to bed.

She continued to check on him every half hour, since he was on heavy painkillers and the others had sat down in the living room to wait in case the help would come despite the weather.

Behind him, Sandy had sat down to smoke a joint as a means to calm down, but none of the others had feel like sharing one with him. Aster, because he preferred to stay focused and North...well...he just hand't felt like it.

Tooth returned from the upper floor with a depressed expression and untouched bowl of alphabet soup. Aster followed her over to the open kitchen. She set a teapot over on one of the open burners and prepared for tea.

"How is he?" he asked quietly and she leaned against the kitchen counter with a tired sigh.

“He’s sore, he’s hurt and most of all exhausted. I couldn’t get him to eat anything and those bites needs some serious stitches, he keeps bleeding though the bandages – where’s that ambulance?”

Aster looked out the window that was now framed in snow and she followed his gaze. The glass vibrated noisy and the cabin howled as another gust of wind got the bricks to shake.

The Australian slammed his fist against the wall and Tooth grabbed his hand with a beseeching expression, "Aster you should go talk to him."

"I'm probably the last person he wants to talk to right now, Tooth," he whispered, didn’t want to be overheard by the others, “you should have heard me, I was blaming him, not believing a word he said. I even accused him of cheating on me – what is _wrong_ with me!?”

Tooth laid a hand on his shoulder, shook him gently, "Aster, please. You have to talk to him, Jack needs you. At least ... tell him you’re sorry and work your way from there. Just go see him, okay?"

Tooth seemed to be on the verge of tears and Aster sighed in defeat, "a'ight."

The walk up the stairs felt all too short, even though he only took one step at a time and he stopped outside the door, unsure of whether he should go straight in or ask Jack for permission. He ended up placing his trust in the latter.

“Jack? You’re awake? It’s me, Aster.”

He got no answer and opened the door cautiously. The room was darkened and the outline of their double bed was one of the only thing visible. Aster tiptoed inside and got a glimpse of Jack's silhouette on the bed.

His pale face peeped out of from the covers he had almost buried himself beneath and wrapped around his body like a tight cocoon. Jack was obviously asleep and Aster sat down on the chair beside the bed. Not sure what to do with himself.

Not that it was anything new, the last couple of hours had made him feel rather useless.

The light from the open door fell onto the polaroid pictures Jack had hung over the bed’s headboard and Aster looked at them one by one.

He found the picture Jack had taken without his knowledge when they'd first arrived and unpacked. Making a sweet fool out of him. The one beside it was a picture of Aster and Jack on the tire-swing in the garden.

Another was from the party, where they had made a number of selfies in front of the fire. Jack had taken some photographs while Aster had slept beside him. All of them with a happy smiling Jack posing for the camera.

Jack's wall of fame. Their collection of good memories from this place.

His boyfriend’s carefree face smiled down at him and Aster grimaced at the picture Jack had taken of them the same the first day they arrived. Asters mouth twitched, trying to keep a sad smile down, to the sight of his own sour face and Jack's silly grin.

He could clearly read the black handwriting on the pictures white frame line.

_’Two years and five months!’_

Aster hid his face in his hands and hunched forward with his elbows on his knees. The suffering teen curled up on the bed in front of him, seemed to be a completely different than the one smiling down at them and Aster knew it was all his fault.

If he hadn’t been so busy discussing Jamie and hurt Jack’s feeling in the car, this would never have happened. If Aster had just ignored the dead bird and accepted Jack's words of leave Jamie alone, they could have walked into town together.

Rather than argue and split up, they could have laughed at the villager’s judgmental stares and went to the workshop together. Walk across the town square and visited the few shops hand in hand.

Jack would surely had persuaded him to buy something silly and unnecessary, like a boyfriend bracelet or something else tacky and stupid like that. But Aster would had done it because he knew it would have brought a smile to Jack’s sweet face and made the day special.

They would have bought lunch, perhaps eating it in a spontaneous picnic at the edge of the forest and then returned to the cabin and sing along to the broke down radio tunes on the way, like the two tone-deaf idiots they were.

The others would be waiting for them back at the cabin, help put the new window up together and later eat cheap pizza over a couple of draft beers. It would have been a fun night, filled with old dusty board games, laughter and jokes.

Jack would have been happy, laughing louder than any of them all combines and snapped a couple of new pictures for the wall over the bed frame.

It would have been perfect.

And now Aster had ruined it forever.

“I’m sorry, Frost,” Aster whispered and felt the tears roll down his cheeks, “I shouldn’t have doubted you, I wasn’t fair.”

Jack stirred in his sleep, but didn’t wake up. Aster laid a hand on his cold shoulder and bit his quivering lower lip.

“I don’t know how, but I’m gonna make this right somehow. I promise.”

Jack was still heavily asleep, when Aster bowed down and pressed a kiss to his cheek. A small smile spread on Jack's face. Aster smiled too, just not as carefree as the sleep of the innocent seemed to make Jack.

“I love you, Jack.”

-

Jack didn’t hear Aster shut the door behind him, but the kiss and his words had found their way into his dream.

Only few outside obstacles reaching him now, as he walked in the blizzard like the center of the storm. He was the eye of the hurricane and had laughed louder than the wind and lighter than the storm gusts.

He felt how he became one with the snow and the essence of winter. Felt the cold run in his blood. He was one with the ice and snow. He was Winter itself.

The light kiss and the loving words caused him to halt, to fall down from his enchantment and Jack let the storm die out. Left it to gather strength, until next time he felt the urge to dance.

Jack thought for a moment he had seen a white rabbit jumping away into the snow and smiled sadly. He knew the rabbit, but its name had long since lost its meaning to him.

Jack was the heart of winter and the rabbit was the hoped that would bring spring with it. The truth saddened him, but Jack knew he would have to realize this sooner or later.

The warmth from the kiss and the sweet words of love would always fill his heart with fire, but ice and fire could never coexist for long. They lived in their own separate worlds and would rule each season in each solitude.

Spring and winter would never meet and was never meant to. They were warmth and cold. Life and death. Glee and sorrow. Germination and withering. Two different existences. Two different lives.

Jack waved a sweet farewell and walked back toward the ice-clad landscape. The storm had died down and it was time to play in the land of winter. Long tendrils of frost flowers decorated the ice under his bare feet.

-

Aster met Tooth at the bottom of the stairs, where she had waited for him.

Shamefully, Aster dried his eyes, but she just smiled at him and went up to take care of Jack. Aster hadn’t really been talking to Jack as he’d promised, but he still felt that he’d done something right.

Back in the living room, Aster walked back to the window and gazed spiteful towards the woods and then discovered that the storm had calmed down. The wind had settled and the snow-covered trees stood silently in the night.

The storm was over.

"Huh. Maybe it wasn’t a bloody blizzard after all," Aster noted and Sandy came up next to him to get a look for himself. He smiled optimistic and North grabbed his phone. Called for help again.

It turned out to be a disappointment.

North cursed furiously and ended the call, “those bastards! They won’t send another police car before the hospital have confirmed Jack has been assaulted. Assaulted!?”

“Bloody hell,” Aster seethed and even Sandy frowned, deeply offended. North threw the phone down on the couch, “and the ambulance won’t get here before they sure they won’t get caught in another blizzard – these people are useless!”

Aster threw himself down on the opposite couch with an angry grunt.

One thing was to get medical help for Jack and get his open wounds attended, but something completely different was to get someone down here, who could hunt down the monster that’d hurt Jack in the first place.

The longer they waited the less chances they had of actually catching the guy. Aster might had been able to recognized the place where he’d found Jack in daylight, but after a snowstorm?

The forest road would be one big white stretch, impossible for him to recognize and identified the exact stop of the crime scene.

If that wasn’t enough already, they had remembered too late that they would need semen remains to help the police identify this guy and there was nothing to do about it now, that all the evidence had been washed of Jack upstairs.

North had studied Jack's dirty clothes and concluded there might be enough DNA on it, but it was uncertain whether it would be enough in a simple investigation. In any case, none of them could have gotten themselves to force Jack to sit for hours with dirt and semen in his wounds.

The only reason they would have kept Jack from getting clean, was if the help had arrived as promised on time.

Aster rocked on his heels and turned to the clock above the fireplace. 02:45.

Too much time had already passed and every second gave their rapist more time to pack his stuff and leave this place. Aster clenched his hands helplessly and stared ahead. Tick. Tock.

The couch dipped and Aster looked up at North, who had sat down next to him and beckoned for Sandy to join them. They both looked confused down on the digital camera North held in his hands. 

“You fellas remember I took pictures for the insurance, the other day, yes?”

They nodded, still not quite following and he rummaged through the camera's pictures, “well, I saw something and I think it might be the one that smashed the window.”

Aster rolled his eyes. Classic North to get side tracked in the middle of a crisis, “North, mate – there’re more important things at stake that some bloody vandal, right now.”

“I was not finished,” North continued with a severe voice, “Tooth just told me that Jack had mumbled something about a tall and black clad guy, when she asked him out about what happened in the forest.”

The camera's display scrolled past a series of pictures of the broken window, the ground below it and one of the side of the cabin. The next image got both Sandy and Aster to widen their eyes in shock.

The flash had lit up the forest line in an almost white image and made all the trees gray and protruding. In the middle of the image was a black silhouette.

High and thin as a tree, staring straight back at the camera with bright eyes and a hand lifted to shield its face, as if the blitz had taken it by surprise.

North nodded gravely and Aster zoomed in on the humanoid silhouette. Felt a shiver run down his spine, “a tall guy clad in black…”

“I think he has been spying on us,” North replied and they gazed at each other with the same steely expression. The same thought running through their heads.

Sandy pounded his fists together with a dark expression, a gesture that spoke more than words and North nodded, “you said it, Sandy.”

The huge Russian stood and walked to the great cupboard that filled half the room. Aster and Sandy followed him and watched as North opened the cabinet doors and pulled out an old rifle from the top shelf.

North had found the old rifle when they had moved the furniture out to the shed and showed it to Sandy. They had let it be for no good reason, just found it to cool to be removed to the shed, but now it should prove to be useful.

North took a box of bullets that was at the disposal and loaded the gun in a shift movement. The sound cracked like thunder through the cabin and those sky-blue eyes of his promised harm.

Both Sandy and Aster had heard some dark stories about North’s time on the street, but it was first in this moment that they finally came to realise that the jolly guy they had looked up to like a big brother, was the same Russian that used to lead the Cossack gang that ruled the old town of Burgess.

“If we do not do something, no one will. This man will not get away with this.”

“What are you suggesting,” Aster asked, wanted to know beforehand how far they would go.

“I say we find our guy, give him proper beating, bring him back here and hand him over to the police, when they feel like showing up. Get confession on tape.”

Sandy nodded eagerly and Aster understood that the final decision would fall on him. The memory of Jack's tears and shaking, bruised body came back to him and Aster clenched his fists.

He nodded, “let’s get that bloody bastard.”

-

They’d left a note behind for Tooth.

Explained where they went and why. Informing her in carefully selected words, that they would probably return again sometime during the morning.

Noon of them had been disillusioned enough to deny the known fact that Tooth would straight up forbid them to leave the house and play avengers in some spontaneous hunt for Jacks rapist, if they asked for permission first.

They did as grown men would do and simply left the note and nothing else, chose to cut corners where they were softest and slip away before she found out. Moreover, they couldn’t continue to sit by idly anymore. It was something they had to do.

For Jack's sake.

Aster checked his phone and found no signal. He figured it was the same for the other two, since Tooth hadn’t called them yet and ordered them to return to the cabin this instant.

The only thing keeping her from going out and dragging them back by the ear, was probably Jack and Aster’s will to punish this unknown man doubled tenfold by the thought of his wounded boyfriend back at the cabin.

The wind outside the car had subsided completely and Aster peered out on the crispy white road and forest fence.

"Recognize anything?" North asked from the back seat and Aster rolled down the window, "we didn’t drive far, it must’ve been around here, mate."

Finding the crime scene was their first clue. If their guy had raped Jack in the woods as they figured, he could easily have left traces by means of left clothes or lost items behind. Something that could help them to identify him.

The only problem? Aster couldn’t for his life recognize the place now when everything was covered by a thick layer of snow and just to make it worse, was the fact that the same snow would cover the evidence that may had be able to find.

North had brought a huge weed-burner to melt the snow with for when they found the place, but as it progressed at this moment, they could easily had driven past it without Aster's knowledge. The entire route was almost identical.

He had absolutely nothing to go by.

“Cricky,” he murmured quietly and pulled the jacket tighter around him. Despite the fact that the wind had died down, there was an almost unnatural coldness in the air that chilled to the marrow of the bone.

It almost hurt to breathe, as if he was breathing the essence of glass or silence.

Sandy drove the car a little further and waited for Aster to pin point anything he recognized. A black shadow slid across the white road and Sandy stopped abruptly to avoid hitting it.

North smashed his face flat against Sandy's backrest and Aster hit his head against the window edge. None of them was badly injured, but winced anyway.

 _“Rimsky-korsako!_ ”

“C’me on, Sandy, who signed your driver citification, the bumper-car manager?”

Sandy sent them a panicked look and pointed perplexed towards the road outside the car’s headlight. Made wild gestures and signs that went too fast for any of them to decipher.

They just shook their heads uncomprehendingly and Sandy frowned angrily, opened demonstratively his car door and waited for them to get out and follow him.

The small plump man was waiting for them in front of the car and pointed strictly on the white untouched snow in front of them.

A number of long tracks, matching that of a fast sprinting animal, stood clearly out in the snow. Aster tilted his head and bent down. The footprints, on closer inspection, turned out not to belong to any forest animals, but something bigger and much more human.

The footprint was a bare human foot. Stretched by speed.

They gathered around the tracks and held their flashlights high to get as much light as possible. None of them noticed the shadows fluttering movements behind them. Busy as they were with their mysterious discovery.

North took in the footprint with eager, “oh footprints! Why didn’t you say anything, Sandy?”

Sandy facepalmed, but let it go.

North pointed to the deepest of the footprints, “my guess it that it was a male, too heavy and wide-footed to be woman or child. Theses footsteps are pretty deep, the weight of tall or heavy person.”

“And possible our guy,” Aster noted, “the weather is bat-shit crazy, the villagers would probably know better than to go out at this time at night. Only someone with a purpose would be out here. Maybe to cover up his tracks or collect stuff he left behind for the police to find?”

“Or to finish his business with Jack,” North noted with a serious tone, “these footprints points back to cabin. Jack knows what he looks like, can identify him. Most rapist don’t like taking that kind of chance and finish their victims off.”

Sandy made an alarming face and the gravity of the situation hit Aster like a brick wall, “he’s looking for Jack. And we left him all alone in the cabin with no one but Tooth!”

North cursed in colorful Russian and turned promptly to the car to get to the driver's seat first. This time Aster let him take it, the Russian's crazy, but fast driving would for once be appreciated and he jumped into one of the backseats.

North started the ignition and all as one tensed when the engine sputtered once, before going out and died down completely. North tried again, but with the same result and became more and more violent, as he tried to force the car back to life.

Aster jumped out of the car with a snarl and ran up to the car's hood.

"Sandy get the tool-box in the trunk, North, open the hood!"

The car's helmet jumped up in front of Aster and he held his flashlight high. His eyebrows rose immediately.

For a second he thought that the flashlight's hard contrast between light and dark had played a trick on him, but there was no doubt now that he inspected the engine by hand. A black layer of tar-like slime covered the engine, as a sticky porridge and it stuck to his gloves in long sticky threads.

Sandy was still rummaging the trunk to find the tools, but Aster doubted that a bottle of car oil and wrench could fix this engine. Aster’s nose caught the recognizable smell of sweet rottenness and his thoughts sent him back to the night he and Jack had found the dead deer.

The black slime ... the dead deer ... the dead bird ... the black sand covering all surfaces ...

"Aster, what you doing!?"

Aster awoke from his terrible coil of thoughts and opened his mouth to call them to him, when he caught a glimpse of movement. Sandy glowed in the dark with his yellow winter coat, hair and flashlight, but the person behind him was practically merged with the darkness.

Sandy’s scream of surprised was muffled by the shadow claw that clung tightly around his face and torso. Dragging him down.

“Sandy!”

Aster stood frozen in horror and North, who was half out of the car door, pulled the rifle to his eye and aimed, as their blonde friend was pulled backwards and into the darkness.

The shot echoed, but the shade was too fast and disappeared with the struggling Sandy. Aster broke out of his dear-in-headlights state and ran after North to get Sandy back.

The lost flashlight illuminated the tracks that Sandy and his kidnapper had left behind and neither Aster nor North wasted time and raced in the tracks direction.

Aster yelled Sandy’s name in hopes of getting a safe direction to go by, while North reloaded rifle with eyes that could kill and would kill, should anything had happened to Sandy.

A scream of agonizing pain tore the night somewhere ahead of them and the sound of Sandy’s dreadful howls got both his friends to widened their eyes in panic and run faster.

They both stopped as they got to an open clearing, partly of breathless-ness and partly due to difficulty breathing at all, as the red snow appeared in their cones of light. Aster felt his stomach flip in nausea and denial.

Stark red blood covered the surface of several trees and was splashed on meters of snow before them.

The image was almost to hash for the eye as it shone cruelly against the pure white snow and Aster couldn’t look at it without getting black dots before his eyes and blind rage stabbed him deep in the soul.

“SANDY!”

A bestial roar met his cry of desperation and a large lump of dark mass moved ahead. Aster and North's fury was rapidly replaced by pure fear, when the large shadow broke free of the darkness of night and stormed straight toward them at full speed.

Aster, who appeared to be the shadow goal, threw himself to the side and avoided it just barely. North cursed startled and shot after it. Aster rolled across the snow to get out of the way, grabbed the flashlight that had ended up beneath him and aimed it at the shade.

It took him a few seconds to find the thing, as it seemed to had melted completely with the darkness, but found is as it revealed itself with its puffed and groaned sounds, quite similar to those of a large animal.

A creature of human dimensions, but inhuman shape, screaming in the light's blinding glow and turned its head to them with a roar of fury.

The large bright eyes that shone like that of a deep-sea fish, was the only thing visible in the dark mass that was its shadowy body and it stared blindly and wildly back at them. The shadowy behemoth of a man barred his shark-like jaws and planted his long claws into the snow to push off from the ground.

North took advantage of the monster’s exposure in light and aim again, this time taking the time to make it a clean shot. The bullet resounded through the woods and tore the bark of the tree behind the beast.

But even if the shot had been a direct hit that should have torn the black body’s cardiac tissue and killed it on the spot, it not as much as indicating that it had been gazed by the bullet and jumped forward without hindrance.

North made a rapid roll to break the fall, when he threw himself to the side and avoided the long claws that lashed after his throat. The big russian was quickly back on his feet despite his size and reloaded the riffle in one beat without blinking twice.

The beast melted back into the shadows and Aster sought desperately after it with his flashlight, tried to spot its shape in the dead of night before the next attack. He doubted they’d sent it on the run.

North was the first of them to catch the monster with his flashlight, as it had tried to sneak up on him and plant in claws into his wide back. The shadow man screamed in soulless pain, as North turned around on the beat and caught its face and chest with his flashlight.

North knew deep in his soul that he would never forget the nightmarish sight that stared back at him, only and inch from his face. Staring right into his soul and leaving its mark of death.

The once human creature convulsed in pure agony as it howled and North’s frozen fear was first broken, when the creature slashed its claw across his chest.

North had held the gun up in front of him out of pure reflex and hence avoided being torn open from head to foot, but the riffle was now nothing more than useless shreds between his hands and broken spare parts fell into the deep snow and disappeared forever.

The beast howled like a wolf in a leghold-trap and pulled its sizzling claw to its chest in visible pain. The smell of burnt flesh and iron filled the crisp air and mingled with the sweet stench that oozed from the steaming black blood that stained the snow.

"North, we’ll have to run! We’ve to get outta here!"

North's eyes were still fixated on the monster in front of him in horror, but was nevertheless able to stand when Aster pull him out of the snow and led them away from the forest.

Without the rifle to protected them or the certainty of Sandy’s fate, they ran all the snow could allow them and climbed back up on the road where the car was still standing – still useless and now overrun with small black shadows.

They flickered like little skittish animals on the car and hissed furiously when North's flashlights fell on them.

"Forget it, mate! They’ve filled the engine with black slime!" Aster protested and tried to pull North away from the vehicle and the meaningless fight of possession. North uttered a sound of furious frustration and got up on his left side as the ran down the forest road.

Behind them, the sound of rapid feet and whispers pursued them and in front of them jumped the cone of their lights hectic and sporadic to lead them in the right direction. Small and insignificant rings of light in the solid darkness.

A puny weapon if they got caught.

The trail from the car made it easier for them to run through the compacted snow, but Aster felt his heart fly up and settle in his throat, when his foot almost slipped on the icy ground and threatened to take away his balance.

Farther behind them the monster's roar mixed with the smaller shadows hissing voices and the ground seem to reverberate under the galloping feet and claws.

They both unknowingly picked up speed by the sound and gasped for breath, the fear takinghold with its clutch of their pounding hearts. Aster’s breathing and pulse sounded like a stream of blood racing through his ears, but was still drowned out by the growing wailing approaching them rapidly.

Adrenaline flowed thick in the veins of the two men and their imagination produced distorted image of teeth digging into their backs and phantom feeling of long claws gripping around their ankles and making them fall behind.

The light from the cabin blinked closer like a lighthouse in the eyes of the distressed at sea and Aster grabbed North when the larger and heavier man slowly started to fall behind.

Countless luminous eyes glimmered in the darkness on both sides of them and Aster forced himself to look forward.

Only forward. They were so close.

Both came to an unwanted halt as several shadow creatures suddenly appeared on the roadside and began to encircle them from the forest edge like hungry predators. Their staring lantern eyes ate them up and stretched eagerly their long skeletal fingers toward them as in a mixture of warning and craving.

North swung roaring his flashlight toward the nearest of the shadows and the smallest of them pulled back in venomous hissing. Aster straightened the point of the flashlight at the nearest shadows and they retreated as if he had burned them.

He gasped as the light created an opening in the circle and ran for it.

”North, c’me on!”

North gave up on fighting the small shadows creping up on them like a flock of hyenas and ran after him. Too late the shadows discovered the opening in their ranks and stretched their hands at them in screaming rage, but missed them by only an inch and the two men ran toward safety.

Aster allowed himself to take one last glance back and saw to his astonishment and relief, that none of the monsters had dared to follow them into the driveway of the cabin.

Some of the bravest leaped stooped forward, but hissed when they came too close to the lights of the cabin windows and retreated to the other shadows and the security of the tree line's darkness. 

North reached the door as the first and hammered for all he was worth on the wet wood.

“TOOTH! _TOOTH!!_ ”

Aster joined him in panic and hammered till his fist became sore, “Tooth! Open up! Please!”

A very upset and furious Tooth opened the door and barely got to make a word before they nearly toppled her and pushed to get inside.

Aster slammed the door shut and secured the big bolt across the door, a large piece of decorated – but firm wood board – they hadn’t used until then, since it had seemed a little unnecessary when you had a working lock.

But now it was very much appreciated.

Both Aster and North sighed in sweet relief. They were inside the cabin. They were safe in the light. They were alive.

The clock over the fireplace struck 06:00 pm.

-

Pitch watched the cabin from the wood's tree line and scowled enraged.

One of the humans had already meet a horrible bloody end and joined his army of shadows, but that was a meager gratification, not nearly enough to calm the fairy prince’s burning ire.

He could practically feel his claimed prince presence and smell his half-transformed scent from the cabin. Everything had went as it should, he had claimed his mate by the rituals, led the magic back into his veins and secured his way into his world as the chosen bride by Pitch's side.

But then that _human_ …that _light!_

Pitch snarled and his shadows became fueled with his anger and hissed like an extension of his infuriation. Pitch eyed the light of the cabin with hatred and remembered the fire that once had been set to his home by previous humans.

Thought themselves rightful in taken what was his, cheating him and steal what he had marked as his possession. He may have lost Nightlight, but he wouldn’t lose Jack.

If the blizzard and heavy fall of snow was anything to go by, something could indicate that Jack had gotten the first taste of his newfound powers and blew them all off at once.

A dangerous thing to do as a new born fairy and a sign that Jack was in pain. Possible exposed to light or in contact with iron. Pitch had to get him back and subdued the stream of power, before Jack hurt himself or got drained for power completely.

If only those humans hadn’t interfered.

Pitch wasn’t sure if this anger was a coursed by the loos of his claimed bride or the accumulated of cases of debasement he had been forced to suffer from the hands of humans.

But he knew this; those humans were going to pay. Just like the humans before them.

No sound of compressed snow was heard as his court of fairies stepped forth and bowed before him. He turned to them and they shivered by the sight of his cold and golden eyes.

Only the little fairy, once known as Jill Overland, seemed to meet his glare with hopeful glee and awaited his orders eagerly.

His eyes narrowed, “you know what to do.”


	12. Of easy wind and downy flake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys!  
> A little heads up - my exams will be coming up in december and last until end of january, so if there's no new update, you'll know why  
> but don't worry - i'm not giving up on my fics, i'm only getting started =D  
> hope you enjoy and leave a comment if you feel like it
> 
> * * *

“What in the sweet moon of soma do you guys think you’re doing!?”

Tooth stared them down like an indignant school teacher, scolding two children caught in the midst of a severe crime and both males looked at each other.

The past hour’s event passing before their eyes.

She didn’t have the patience for their stalling, taking her frustration out on them when none of them broke the silence, “you can’t just leave a piece of paper, saying you’re going out for some wild goose chase and expect me to be cool about it! For god’s sake – the snow’s 10 feet out there and Jack is death sick! He has a fever and the help isn’t coming and all you boys can think of is playing some stupid game of hunters and –”

Aster woke up from his nightmarish daydream, “what? Jack’s crook!?”

Tooth gave him a seething look, “oh, now you guys care?”

He ran up the stairs without taking care of her angry rant behind him, leaving North to her anger. He knew they deserved it, but the image of shadows in the woods and the smell of Sandy’s cold blood still hung on him like a second skin of horror.

Made it hard to care about Tooth’s resentment and take care of problems lesser than what lurked just outside the cabin.

Jack and his room was conveniently lit by more than one lamp and some abandoned paraphernalia told him that Tooth had been up here taking care of Jack when they had hammered on the door.

A bowl with water and melting ice cubes were left on the bedside table and a damp cloth covered Jacks sweaty forehead. He was asleep, but twisted and turned restlessly between the sweaty blankets.

His cheeks and chest was flustered and fever heated. Aster had never seen Jack this pale before and as he got closer, he could have sworn Jack's hair roots had become white. He shook it off without second thought.

Had to be the light playing tricks on him.

“Jack? Bloody hell…”

He hurried to his boyfriend’s side and removed the cloth from his forehead. Jacks temperature was warm against his palm, almost burning and Aster rushed to wring the cloth with new ice water.

He was no doctor, but even he could see this was serious, Jack needed medical attention and that now. Most of Jack's sweaty torso had become bandaged by Tooth, but the long scratches and blue hickeys stood out on the sickly pale skin like paint.

Jack hissed painfully when Aster tried to investigate one of them and hastily he pulled his hand back. No need to hurt Jack further.

“Jack? Jack, can you hear me?” Aster tried, but Jack continued his troubled sleep and mumbled nonsense in his delirium, “Wings…Wi…come back…please, Jill. Don’t g….burns…it burns…”

Aster grabbed his head with a heavy sigh. He had once heard that people could die of fever and the thought made him sick. Jack needed something to turn down the fever until they had provided better antibiotics than the pills and cream that had been part of the first aid kit.

And maybe something sedative like morphine. Aster wondered briefly if Sandy could have something among his stash and forgot how to breathe.

Sandy.

The Image of the bloody snow and trees in the woods got his breathing to hitch and he let out a choked sob, which he immediately tried to stifle, not wanting to wake up Jack. His hands were trembling.

They had left Sandy in the woods. Sandy were still lying out there in the snow somewhere and had perhaps already become food for the flock of shadows. Sandy was gone.

Sandy was dead.

The sound of the altercation from the floor under him, brought Aster back to the present and he forced himself to drag a few big mouthfuls of air down his lungs. Regain his senses. There was no time for panic attacks right now.

They had to secure the cabin.

Tooth’s raging voice could still be heard as he moved down the stairs again and if North's facial expressions was anything to judge by, it was doubtful whether the russian had gained the courage to tell her what had happened to them.

"And where’s Sandy?" she asked irritated and a painful expression came across North’s facial features, "if you have left him out there to continue your silly search then -"

"He’s dead." 

Both Tooth and North turned to him as he made the last step and entered the living room. One looked down, the other looked at him with confusion.

"What?" came it baffled from Tooth. Either she hadn’t heard him or maybe something in her refused to accept his words. If it was the last, he honestly couldn’t blame her.

"Sanderson's death, Tooth," Aster repeated slowly, noticing how the hopelessness crept into his voice, "we were attacked in the woods and lost Sandy of sight. We didn’t find the body, but there was too much blood that he could’ve survived it ... I ... I'm sorry Tooth ..."

Tooth continued to look at him with clear confusion. Waited undoubtedly for the punch line. The end of the joke. Sandy jumped out from behind the couch - just something… but nothing came and something in Aster’s red rimmed eyes made it clear to her that this wasn’t a joke.

She turned to her boyfriend for an explanation, but North had covered his eyes.

“He’s…gone?” she whispered almost as a question to herself more than Aster. Her flat tone full of disbelief.

Aster wanted nothing more than to given them the time to grieve and gather around the loss of their mutual friend and beloved comrade, but the darkness had begun to roam outside the windows and Aster could hear the whispering afar.

“Listen, we don’t have much time, they’re coming and we need to secure the house – now!”

North knew what he was talking about and hurried to turn on all the lights that still worked. He ran out to the kitchen to find as many weapons as possible and brought their extra flashlights and lighters back to the living room.

Aster grabbed his phone, found no signal and threw it on the sofa to check North’s and Tooth’s. Tooth was still in the same spot and watched them work in puzzled confusion. She only uttered half a protest when Aster pulled her phone from her hands.

No signal.

“Cricky,” he whispered and ran a hand through his hair before he turned to the cabin's large cabinet. An old corded phone greeted him from the bottom shelf and he fumbled with it to find the end of the line and locate the old socket in the living room it could be connected to.

Tooth finally broke out of her shocked state and grabbed North to get make him stop.

“North! What?...what are you two –?”

“Shhh!” Aster shushed and pressed the number to the station. He came through at the second attempt and North breathed a sigh of relief along with him, when the sound of a voice on the other end broke out.

_“911, this is Jane speaking, what is your emergency?”_

“My name’s Aster Bunnymund, I and ma friends need help! One of our friend’s dead!”

 _“Can you describe what happened?”_ the unknown Jane and her thick Virginia accent continued, the sound of keyboard typing in the background.

Aster knew there was a procedure in this, but didn’t feel they had time for this, “we were attacked out in the woods, something…big killed him – you have to send someone down here!”

_“Something…as in a bear? Was it a bear attack?”_

Aster didn’t know how to answer that without buying himself a ticket to the madhouse, “listen, we need help, one of our friends need medical help right away to – he’s burning up!”

All the cabin lights flashed before everything went dark. Aster gasped as Jane's voice disappeared and the phone died, “wait, NO!”

“What’s happening!?” Tooth asked in a strident but panicly voice, that demanded some answers this instant and North shared a dreadful look with Aster. The sound of whispering and murmuring voices were audible now, even Tooth seemed to have discovered they were no longer alone.

"What’s that?" she asked, voice coated in fear and North grasped her arm. Not taking his eyes of the windows one second.

“Take Jack and hide in the attic.”

Tooth was clearly going to contradict, but North turned to her with eyes that left no room for discussion and raised his voice, “ _now_ , Tooth!”

Tooth just stared at him. Speechless.

At no point in their relationship had she ever experienced being given orders by North, nor yelled at. She looked at him with fear for a second before she slowly moved backwards toward the staircase and disappeared up to the upper floor.

Both men felt a little easier now that they knew their sweethearts would be safe. As much security as a dark cabin could provider that was.

“Light,” North finally said and Aster moved to the nearest lamp. The light bulb was in excellent condition, but the power outlet gave no power. North beckoned for him to come to the window.

“Hear that?”

Aster could only hear the sound of the incoming invasion of shadow creatures and nightmare horror-shows, but soon caught onto what North meant. The humming from the shed had ceased.

"The generator’s dead," he whispered and North nodded, “I normally fill it before we go to sleep. It is out of juice. We have to get out there.”

They looked at each other and knew it wasn’t any way around it.

They had to cross the dark courtyard if they wanted to survive.

-

Tooth slammed the door behind her, heaving with her back pressed to the door in the dark room and placed her hands over her mouth. Her eyes were blank and eyebrows pulled together in humiliation. She couldn’t believe that had occurred down in the living room.

Sandy was dead?

Something attacked them?

Something attacked them _now?_

She shook her head, tried to gather her thoughts and prevent them from ending up in the same sick channel that began with Aster's description of Sandy's blood and ended with North's harsh tone.

Tooth had no idea what was happening around her, but an urge to call home and hear her parents' voices allowed a treacherous whimper to escape her lips.

Jack muttered from his position in the bed and Tooth was pulled back to the present moment and the task her boyfriend had entrusted ... no, _forced_ upon her.

She quickly wiped her eyes and walked over to Jack. The teen was still in dreamland, but something might suggest that that his fever had subsided and delivered him to a more natural sleep.

Without the light Jack occurred even paler than before, but the former fever blush had left him and he was no longer soaked with sweat. Possibly a good sign. She removed the icy cloth from his forehead and tried to read his temperature with her palm.

Tooth’s eyebrows rose in dismay. Jack was cold as ice.

"Jack?" she whispered, shaking him gently. Jack's brown eyes opened slowly and cumbersome.

“Tooth…mmm, is the ambulance here?”

“No, not quite,” she admitted, looked away, “we uhmm, we’re just going to move to the attic for a little while. Come on, let’s get you some warm cloths.”

Jack was clearly confused, but to drowsy and sick to ask more probing questions and let her dress him like a little child.

Tooth was considering letting him stay in bed – where he should be – but North’s new side wasn't a part of her boyfriend she particularly wanted to experience further and decided to follow his orders. At least for now.

She gritted her teeth and gathered Jack's quilts and blankets together.

“I don’t feel so good,” Jack whispered hoarse and coughing violently.

Tooth wrapped him in an extra sweater before one of his signature hoodies and gave him a winter jacket. She fished with a quilt over his trembling shoulders and led him out of the room. Tooth watched Jack’s condition with concern.

She had no idea if cold sweat was a normal side-effect after wound inflicted fever, but whatever the infection had done to Jack, it couldn’t be anything good.

Dark circles had begun to form under Jack’s eyes, as she moved him up through the hatch in the ceiling and into the dusty attic.

The strong emergency flashlight she had brought along illuminated the entire attic in a yellow tinge and if Jack’s tan had seemed deathly pale back at the bedroom, it was nothing compared to this lightning.

He fell more than sat down on the nest of quilts and blankets she had prepared for him and only his eyes and brown bangs could be seen between clothes and layers of blankets.

Tooth listened one last time, in case North and Aster had something to say, before she closed the hatch and crept over to Jack's blanket fort with the flashlight in tow. Jack's eyes began to water when a part of the light hit his eyes and he winced as if she had done him harm.

She hastened to point it down at the planks and away from the teen. Thinking Jack's senses might had become hypersensitive.

“Sorry…” she whispered sheepishly, rubbing her hands together to get warm. The attic didn’t appear to be intended for habitation and were less insulated than the rest of the cabin, the cold penetrated like water through a sieve.

There were no windows to light up the attic and the only way down was the hatch, which suited Tooth just well. Her breath came out in small clouds. Jack’s didn’t.

He leaned tired his head against her shoulder and Tooth sighed wearily. Tried to think of something pleasant and allowed her thought to wander. They soon returned to Sandy.

The thought of the blond brought tears to roll down her cheeks.

-

"Okay,” North whispered and popped the cap on the two bottles of liquid grill lighter fluid.

Both Aster and North withheld a trembling breath while Aster removed the bolt from the door as quietly as possible and clicked the lock.

They looked at each other. Reviewed the plan in each their head one last time.

They had spent most of their precious time to set up all the flashlights and battery-powered light units they could find in front of all the windows and even lit all the candles there was to be found in the cabin, just to be on the safe side.

Ensuring their base had been the first priority, but both of them knew deep down that it was just an excuse to postpone the inevitable and get to the real problem.

In any case, they would have to come face to face with the nightmare that awaited them outside the cabin and get the real light back. None of them were sure how long their measly lighting would keep the monsters away, but they couldn’t defer it anymore.

They had to get the generator back on again. They had to go out there.

"Three ..." Aster mimed and clicked the last door lock open. North tightened his grip on the two plastic bottles. The smell of lighter fluids filled the room.

"Two…"

Aster opened Sandy's zippo lighter and focused a bit on the open flame. Clutching the doorknob. Four bottles of vodka with rags pushed down the bottle throat, jingled when his boot came into contact with them.

Aster felt his hands became sweaty and his grip getting weaker.

"One ..."

All North's muscles tensed and Aster raised his flashlight to the front door. Listening closely for any indication of movement, rustling, hissing – just something that could indicate that the shadows could be lurking just outside the door.

Not a sound was heard. It was quiet. Too _bloody_ quiet.

"NOW!" North shouted in a wild warrior cry and Aster tore the door open before he could regret anything.

North ran through the snow in a straight line toward the door to the shed and poured the contents of the two lighter fluids bottles out on the snow in two straight lines on his right and left side. 

Darkness writhed immediately and came to live in hundreds of shadow bodies. One of the shadows lashed out to get North and Aster threw the first molotovcocktail.

It wasn’t a direct hit, but the homemade bomb blazed strongly as it hit the side of the shed and the shadows around it pulled back screaming.

North continued his straight route and Aster threw the next molotovcocktail when the shadows were trying to attack him from the other side of the fire.

Aster was down on one molotovcocktail when North reached the shed and dropped the two bottles in favor of a keys to the shed. Aster clicked the zippo-lighter and dropped it, as he raced towards North.

The lighter landed on the beginning of lighter fluids rim and as a track to a plain runway, two tongues of flame ran through North's delineated track and made a marked corridor of fire for Aster to run through.

The shadows retreated from the light emitted by the fire and hissed and writhed furiously after the two. Aster threw one of the two industrial flashlights he'd kept in his jacket pocket to North and they slammed the shed door behind them and closed the lock.

-

Tooth blinked somnolent and sat up from her spot on the floor. Was it just her or did the attic smell a little burned?

Jack moved uneasily and she chose to ignore her nose in exchange for taking care of the sick. Jack had fallen asleep again and she helped him to lie down, to prevent him from getting a crick in the neck from sitting up and sleeping.

The bright light from the flashlight was still working and illuminated the attic like a lamp, but Tooth found it strange that the left side of the attic seemed to have become brighter. As if the sun had risen in the west.

The sound of breaking glass made her forget all about light and burnt smells, and Tooth listened to the floor beneath her in a strange state of curiosity. Jack continued to sleep heavily and she moved carefully away from him and towards the closed hatch to investigate, without waking him up.

Tooth opened the hatch and peered down. She figured Aster and North still had problems with the generator, since all she could see was darkness and a bit of light from the bottom of the stairs.

It fluttered slightly, making her conclude they must have lit some candles to see.

"North?" she called quietly and waited for answers. There was no verbally, but the flickering lights from the bottoms of stairs went out with a sizzling sound. Tooth raised an eyebrow.

“Aster?”

No one seemed to feel like answering her and Tooth gulped. It was irrational to fear what you couldn’t see or hear, but Tooth felt like there was someone at the end of the stairs. Someone who listened to her and crept closer in the thick darkness.

And it wasn’t North or Aster.

She quietly closed the hatch again. Clenched her teeth and shut her eyes as the wood creaked louder than it should be legal. If the person downstairs wasn’t aware of her position before, it would be by now.

 _Nice work, Tooth,_ she thought and scowled at her own stupidity. She looked around and searched quickly for something useful and end up dragging an old box with Christmas decorations to lay on top of the hatch.

It wasn’t exactly heavy, but the weight would be enough to keep the intruder from getting up without her knowledge and she crept back to Jack's nest. Threw her arms around her knees. Tried to get warm again.

“Tooth…”

She looked down and found Jack awake among the many blankets and quilts. His voice sounded hoarse, but the cough had stopped so she took it as a sign of improvement.

"Jack, how are you? Better?" she asked hopefully and helped him halfway to sit. She lost her breath, when the blanket around Jack's head slid down and revealed his normally brown locks.

Like an old man, Jack's roots and temples had changed color from mahogany to stark white. The strange color change got Tooth to forget all about the intruder and North’s harsh words.

She laid a hand on Jack's cheek in a mix of shock and sympathy. Couldn’t believe what was happening to her friend.

”Oh, Jack, your hair!”

He didn’t seem to have registered her words and hung between the blankets, looking sick to the bone and collapsed without the will or strength to hold himself up anymore.

"Tooth I don’t think the help will get here..."

She grabbed him before he could collapse again and almost burned her hands on his icy skin. Tried to cover ham in more blankets and secure the warmth he didn’t possessed.

"Of course it will, Jack. Stop talking like that. The ambulance will be here any minute now and then they get here, they’ll fixed you up in no time. They’ll drive us to a hospital where they can help you and we can get this mess sorted out. We just – "

“I think I’m dying,” Jack blurred incoherent and squirmed like he was going to throw up. Nothing came up, but the movement provoked a new coughing fit that sounded way too wet in Tooth’s ears.

She felt how the situation was getting out of control and grabbed Jack a little harder than necessary.

"Jack you listen to me. You're not dying, you’re hurt and sick and been abused, but you’re not going to die. Not here and not now. Your fever’s gone and you're just cold, ‘cause we’re sitting up here and as soon as North and Aster come back, we’ll get you carried down to the fireplace, okay? You’ll get through this. Is that clear? You’re not gonna die, Jack, you're just ... "

She didn’t know what he was, but she had far from given up on him. Her own words had strengthened her more than they seemed to have bolstered Jack, but she could be the strong one for both of them and compelled him gently to lie down again.

"You're just sick, that's all."

She began to massage his icy feet and regained some of her lost control. Regained her composure again.

A little whim lighted up her mood and she smiled sadly, "you know…I was going to tell North first and then the rest of you along with him, but now I don’t know if I should wait a little, now that Sandy is ..."

She stopped herself when she remembered Jack wasn’t actually aware of Sandy's death and forced herself back on track. No need to give Jack more to worry about before he was in safe hands, "now that…all this shit is going on, but I still feel like I should tell this to someone."

She looked down at Jack and saw he was still awake. His eyes held a pale glow she could almost mistake for the same glasslike sheen found in the eyes of dolls. A sound like scratching sounded from the hatch, but none of them took notice and Tooth maintained Jack’s sleepy gaze.

"I took a pregnancy test this morning, or actually yesterday morning, since we passed midnight and all that. I’d suspected it for a few weeks now and guess what, Jack. It came back positive."

An honest smile spread across Jack's pallid face, a bittersweet reminder of his usual happy demeanor and he took her hand under the blankets.

"I'm happy for you," Jack whispered, "North is gonna be super excited when he gets the news."

She nodded. She knew that. North loved children. He would love their child even more.

A light pawing sounded from the other side of the hatch.

-

North screwed the lid of the jerrycan frantically and wasted a handful of fuel, before he could get a sufficient grip on the can with his trembling hands and hit the fuel opening of the generator properly.

Aster waved around the two flashlights like a madman and tried to light up the shed from all directions at once, while the shed’s sides, door and ceiling groaned under the increasing weight of the furious and determined shadows.

More faces of sinister darkness pressed against the two narrow windows and Aster directed his flashlights on them and send them back.

"I need light to see what I am doing!" North shouted stressed and spilled beside the generator now that he stood in the dark again.

"Use your phone, i'm kinda busy here!" Aster retaliated and turned 180 degrees to prevent a shadow from penetrating through the door. It hissed in pain and retreated, but more took its place and one of the windows was shattered when the weight of the many shadows pressed it in.

“I don’t have it!”

“Just get it started! We can pour more when it’s working and lighting these bastards back to the woods!”

North seemed to see his point and left the jerrycan in favor of the generator's pull-cord. It grunted at the first attempt and North pulled again with all his strength behind.

Aster turned his back to catch the shadows who had tried to sneak under the door and heard more than saw the long shadow arm that shot through the last intact window and grabbed North by the neck.

North cried out in shock and Aster let shadows be shadows. North yelled and writhing in the grip like crazy and grabbed one of the long iron pipe that lay scattered across the floor, after Aster had toppled them earlier.

Aster almost slipped in the thick layer of black goo covering all the sheds surfaces and more gliding than ran to North's rescue. They grabbed each other and began to beat the arm with the torch and iron pipe.

The arm's owner hissed by the contact with the light as expected, but both North and Aster were surprised when the iron pipe's blow left a long deep branding across the arm and caused it to pull back in the deep pain. Leaving three fingers behind.

Both North and Aster stared at the burned flesh that still hung from the pipe and seemed to realize the same thing, as they looked up and stared at each other.

Iron burned them.

-

Tooth gasped as the box of Christmas decorations jumped again and she clutching Jack's hand in fear. The box jumped louder this time and was almost toppled, when the one pushing the hatch had put more of its weight behind.

Tooth jumped to her feet and rushed to add her weight down on the box. Keeping the hatch closed.

Her first reaction had been to order the person on the down floor to identify themselves and order them to leave, but Tooth’s guts told her that addressing the intruder was a bad idea right now.

Whatever was lurking beneath the hatch, it was something dangerous and she couldn’t allow it enter the attic under any circumstances. Not on a long shot.

She held her breath as the hatch became still and all the pushing stopped just as quickly as it had begun. Her purple eyes darted in uncertainty and she raised the flashlight up to the shoulder. Stared toward the edges of the hatch with widened eyes.

A black liquid had slowly started to fill the edges and sides of the hatch, and a bittersweet smell spread around. Filled her nostrils with a smell like sweet decay.

Tooth couldn’t do nothing but stare in shaking horror, as the tree and metal-hinges slowly began to rot and rust, as if someone had forced time to go fast forward. Brown damp blotches spread over the Christmas box cardboard sides and caused it to collapse.

Tooth pushed it away in disgust and found herself kneeling in front of the hatch. The metal-hinge curled like burnt paper and drew back from the tree, leaving it wide opened for anyone to enter.

Tooth's breath went from fast to heaving, as she pressed both hands down over the hatch as a last defense and forced all her weight down on the tree. The smell made her gag, but she couldn’t get herself to cover her mouth and pressed down further.

She quietly began hyperventilate in panic as the center of the hatch began to collapse into black rot, sinking into a slowly maddening pace and dissolve itself into moist black wood.

Slowly, like a poisonous fungus, five long and sickly thin fingers pressed through the black tree and stretched up through the rotten wood like it was nothing but soft soil.

Tooth started to slowly leaned away from the hatch, in same slow speed at which the hand stretched upwards. She soon realized that she couldn’t retreat further without lifting her weight from the hatch and thus allow the person beneath it to enter the attic.

The long pale hand grew from the wood and soon exposed a wrist and then the rest of the arm. The long fingers wiggled slowly and remained in the shadow Tooth's hunched body created in order to avoid the light from the fallen flashlight. 

Tooth didn’t know what was going on with the hand and the light, but tried to get the flashlight closer with a foot nevertheless.

The hand moved closer and Tooth stopped with held breath. It was now right in front of her face. Only a few inches from touching the skin between her eyes. She almost became cross-eyed as the tip of the hands index finger grew longer than the rest and a long needle began to unfold from the point of the finger.

A drop of black liquid ran from the tip and approached steadily, but surely towards Tooth's right eye. She couldn’t look away. She couldn’t retreat. She couldn’t move.

She could only watch as the needle approached.

-

Aster and North both looked up from the iron pipe and it’s still seething clumps of burned hair and flesh, as a large part of the roof was torn off the shed and the shadows pressed and fought to get down through the hole first.

North rose and used the pipe as a sword, as he moved to slash the down coming shadows and turned around to grab a second iron pipe on the floor and hit the nearest group of monsters.

The shadows screamed in pain and dissolved back in the darkness of their own, where several waited to take their place.

Aster gave up one on one of his own flashlights in favor of an iron pipe and stood side to side with the big russian. Took one shadow at a time and tried to take the most of them out and get back to the generator.

Tried to hit as many as possible and just survived this. It seemed to be a fruitful strategy as they got back to the generator and Aster reached for it and was only inches from grabbing the pull-cord.

The attempt was stopped when a long burned arm swung down from the opening in the ceiling and Aster lashed out after it with his iron pipe, but slipped on the greasy black blood, that gradually had covered them and the already slippery floor.

North who had stood with his back to him, wasn’t fast enough to react and felt when the arm struck him to the ground and grabbed his jacket. The shadows screamed in triumph and lifted North from the floor.

"North!" Aster yelled shilled and jumped to grab his friend. North struggled in vain to free himself, but several eager hands grabbed him where they could and pulled him up to the roof.

Aster swung his iron pipe and tried to drag North back to the ground with his weight and will, as several shadows entered the shed from all sides. Aster yelped in pain as one of the shadows grabbed his hair and tried to drag his head back and bare his neck for its partner to dig its teeth in to his throat.

Aster strucked the iron pipe and hit the largest of the shadows behind him and wounded two others, when he felt his grip on North loosen.

“ _No!_ ” he screamed and tried digging his nails into North's skin, but it was to late and his hand was pulled from North’s.

The many claws and hands almost covered North's body in black and he screamed as they pulled in all directions to get him through the hole in the roof and outside. Aster lost his breath in shock as the large shadow arm pulled and North's back was pressed against the narrow opening.

North fought some of the smallest of him and turned desperately in their grip. Tried to put his hands and knees against the sides of the hole to hold back, but the shadows strength surpassed his.

Aster screamed as the largest of the shadows pulled with raw force and North's spine folded in a way no normal person should be able to.

North made an inhuman sound, as the back og his head slammed against his boot heels, like some grotesque broken doll and Aster managed to get a last glimpse of the wide-open blue eyes of his, before North was dragged through it all too little hole and a rain of blood spurted out of the shed's floor. 

The majority of the shadows retreated with their prey in cries of joy while the remaining shadows stayed to finish Aster off. Two smaller shadows jumped down on top of him and he snapped out of his frozen state of shock.

”GET OF ME!!” he cried out in mindless anger and threw them off. They both landed on the pile of dismantled iron bars from the cabin and burned up. A larger shadow took their place and Aster beat it like crazy to get it off his back.

They both landed fighting on the floor when Aster slipped in North's fresh blood and landed on top of the shade. The shadow hissed and reconstituted itself on top of him and lashed out to get his neck.

Aster felt cold iron under his finger and swung the iron bar, his hand had closed around not a second to late and cut the shadow in half.

The two burned parts fell writhing to the ground and Aster crept backwards to get some space between him and the many shadows that had started to encircle him. He bumped his shoulder against something, looked up and found the generator.

The shadows murmured in unison and he closed a blood soaked hand around the pull-cord. The shadows drew closer as he struggled to get back on his feet and pulled the chain with shaking hands.

The generator made no sound and he yanked again with a plea. The first shadows had already seized his jacket as he placed all his strength into it and pulled the pull-cord with all his weight.

"WORK YOU STUPID CRAP!”

The generator came to life with a little "plop!" And lit the fluorescent tubes in the shed. All the shadows within the she'sd four walls cried out in a cacophony of pain when the light fell over them and burned their bodies.

Aster fell back on the bloody ground and could only watch as the shadows either fled or was destroyed in the synthetic light.

-

The hand halted an inch from poking through her purple contact lenses and into Tooth's eyeball, as the entire cabin was lit at once and bathed the intruder in electric light.

Tooth watched with open mouth, as the hand receded like an injured moray eels and pulled part of the rotten hatch with it in its escape. Tooth fell back on the floor without a word and stared at the spot where the hand had been a second before.

Black splotches and clumps of squashy wood covered the ladder up to the hatch and laid scattered around on the carpet below. The ceiling light illuminated it all for Tooth to see, but gave no hint about the true form of the intruder.

She was startled when Jack coughed again and broke out of her trance. She went back to him and sat down quietly next to him with an empty look upon her face. Not quite sure if what had just happened to her, had been real or not.

Neither of them moved when the front door burst open and Aster called for them. He found them in the attic, cold, silent and shocked by the sight of him. Not only because of the black slime that covered him, but because of all the blood.

Aster realized it was North’s.


	13. The woods are lovely, dark and deep

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have never written this much action or fight on paper before - guess it's not as bad as i think it is?  
> you people decide - i still can't believe anyone is reading this!  
> Hope you enjoy - comments are always appreciated
> 
> * * *

The sun had set and the clockwork on the fireplace shelf announced with a proved melody, made by a play of little bells, that the day had reached 10:00 in the morning.

Aster looked from the old worn clock to the window and sighed. By the look of the darkness and heavy grey sky outside, it could might as well have been afternoon and no one would have questioned it.

Everything was dark and shaded outside. Dangerous. Everything not inside the cabin was dangerous.

Outside, the yard and shed remained lighted, but Aster had no idea how much gasoline North had had the chance to pour into the generator and how much time they had left before the power would go and leave them to the shadow's mercy.

And speaking of North ...

Tooth's sobs had calmed down to a still crying back at the couch in front of him, but Aster had the feeling it was still too early to approach her. Tooth hadn’t left the living room's safety for obvious reasons, but even he could see she wanted to be alone after Aster had informed her of her fiancé's death.

Maybe it was all for the best, as Aster didn’t know how to comfort someone after such words. Personally, Aster didn’t even know where he stood himself. He had reached a point where he found it hard to feel anything at all and just waited for the dam inside him to break.

When and how he had no idea. When he’d lost Sandy, he had been ablaze with fear, but later, he’d lost himself to his own cold rage when North had been broken and pulled through ...

Aster pressed his hands to his freshly washed face and tried to focus. Tried to remember how to breathe and calm down. He tried focus on his breathing for a couple of minutes and fell how he calmed down little by little.

He had to get his fucking act together. The others didn’t need to see him fall apart like this. He was the only one left who could protect them. He had to be stronger than this. He had to do something productive, something useful.

They had to make a plan.

His red-rimmed eyes turned back to the window automatically. The glass and frame was almost covered with snow and frost by now. A light but steady descending of snowflakes had started during the last hour and it wasn’t looking like it would stop anytime soon.

It was no storm, but it was yet another reason why the help hadn'yt arrived yet. The roads were probably covered with a thick layer of snow, impossible to travel on...

Aster turned his eyes to the cold fireplace, where the living room's last couch had been pushed to. He couldn’t see Jack, only the large quilt blanket that covered him from head to toe, along with the other thick layers of duvets and blankets.

The cold from the attic must had kicked Jack’s fever back to life, leaving the teen in a critical condition, where he alternated between shaking and drenching himself in sweat. Jack had rejected all food and simply buried himself under the blankets to hide in the darkness and its small comfort.

Aster guessed Jack might need a little privacy and had grown tired of their sympathy and pampering, but it was like something wasn’t right with the picture. Aster had a bad feeling of what might be wrong, but forced it down like vomit.

He couldn't think of that right now, wouldn't think such thing. Not now. Maybe never. He had to focus.

They had to do something.

“We can’t stay here,” he ended up saying and Tooth looked up with tear-stained eyes.

He sighed and moved to sit down next to her. She scooted over to make room, wiping her eyes with little difficulty, because of the contact lenses.

"It's not safe here, mate. The light will keep them at bay, but it’s only until the generator runs out of juice. The cans we had in saving is shattered all over the floor out there. There’s only what’s in the tank."

She sniffed and blew her nose into her sleeve, "how long do we have?"

Aster pursed his lips, "an hour ... maybe two? I don’t know, but I know I’ll don’t wanna be here when we find out. It's not safe out here there as long as we’re surrounded by forest. The day time and little sunlight that remains is our only hope."

"It's cloudy," she muttered empty and he just nodded.

"But it is our only chance to escape."

Now it was her turn to nod and she wiped her eyes. She exhaled heavily and suddenly straightened up to her full height – which wasn’t much, but the change was significant – and she turned to him with a firm look that made him blink in surprise.

A resolute tone crept into her otherwise gentle voice, "what's the plan, Aster? What are these creatures?"

Aster forced himself to imitate her tone, man up.

"My guess? Fairies."

"Fairies," she repeated simply and sent him a look that required elaboration.

He groaned, knowing how foolish he sounded, "it kinda make sense, doesn’t it? Ever since we’ve arrived, that’s all the locals have talked about. Horse skulls to keep them away, forest borders not to be crossed, missing people ... I know it's crazy, but ya guess is as good as mine, Tooth. The only thing we can know for sure is that they’re weak against light and iron burns them. That and the fact that one of them hurt Jack."

Tooth glanced in Jack’s direction to see if he had heard them, but Jack seemed to live in his own world of duvets and quilts now. Her eyes darted shortly and she looked urgently at him.

"Do you think ... do you think that's why they’re here? Why they attack us now?"

Aster frowned, the thought hadn’t occurred to him before. But now that he thought about it, their meeting with the supernatural had first started for real after Jack's disappearing.

His boyfriend had been in shock when he’d found him, indicate that the assault had happened just before Aster had shone into the woods with his car lights. Maybe even blinded and stunned the monster that had attacked Jack.

The fairy ... shade ... monster – whatever it was. It began to dawn on him, how strange it seemed that the thing that’d attacked Tooth earlier, had broken into the house, completely alone and just decided to go straight after Jack and Tooth in the attic, rather than use the time to destroy the lighting or letting its own army of shadows into the cabin instead.

Like it had been its plane from the start. Could it have been the same fairy who’d raped Jack?

The knowledge that he had been a hair length away from failing Jack once again, made his insides boil and he forced himself to seal it for now.

"Maybe," he muttered darkly and clenched his fists. Tooth noticed, but said nothing. Her sweet face tightened as she gritted her teeth in determination.

"Okay, so we know what hurts them, what else?"

“We’ll have to make some sorta plan. Staying here is suicide, mate. We’ll have to move Jack now while we can and get as far away from the forest as possible. It's our only chance. If light inhibits them and the forest is their base, then they can’t leave during the day and persecute us longer than till the forest line."

"Then we’ll need a car," she replied resolutely and both their thoughts turned to the Land Rover, that stood left and overrun with shadows back in the forest. Not an option.

"The village, they got to have a car we can take," Tooth added and broke the silence. Aster thought quickly.

"All right, reach the village and get a ride outta here, but how?"

They both looked around for inspiration and stood to check if their phones by some miracle had gained signal. This wasn’t the case.

Aster threw his phone back on the kitchen counter in frustration and pressed his palms against the cool surface. Forced himself to think. Think. Think. Think!

-

The snow fell gently from the cold skies and increased the layer of white powder filling the woods.

A single crystal-clear snowflake formed in the clouds atmosphere and fell like a soft fuzz dropped by a bird in flight. It fell without a sound in the silence that filled the dark forest, until it came to rest on the fairy prince's gray cheek.

Pitch picked up the snowflake in a gentle manner, careful not to destroy it. It melted against his finger and he regarded the drop in silent fascination as it shone like a pearl from his nail.

The shadows groaned around him, writhing impatiently. They alternately between hissing at the lighted courtyard that made the cabin almost unapproachable and winding in and out of one another as ravenous wolves.

Hungry, even after their killing and consumption of the large human male. Pitch had no eyes for them and continued his absentminded adulation of the icy droplet, as his court of fairies slowly approached his presence.

The prince clenched his hand around the droplet. Felt how its magic was absorbed into his gray palm for time and eternity. Finally where it belonged.

"Onyx.”

The fairy called Onyx stepped precariously forward and twisted her long pale fingers. Her black clad figure wasn’t shaking – yet – but Pitch could smell her fear like thick syrup.

Feel her anxiety and golden eyes darting rapidly behind her thick veil of black hair, awaiting his next move. Fearful like a caged mare before the slaughterhouse.

As a human, she had once been a granddaughter of the man named Nightlight and therefore been blessed and cursed with his straight bloodline and therefore magic.

After Nightlight's fall, his wife and children had been captured and forced to live under strict guarding by the village in the house outside the village, that should later be known as the ‘Overland Cabin’.

Behind shield doors and shuddered window, they grew up knowing that one of them would had to pay their fairy-father's blood debt when the annual nine-year peace had elapsed.

Just like the other inbred offspring of Nightlight’s seven children, Onyx had never known anything but the cabin and the villagers who held her and her family trapped in it. As time passed by, she could only wait until a sacrifice was needed and one of them would be taken away to fulfill the blood sacrifice to the woods.

When Onyx had reached the age of 20, she had already witnessed her uncle and younger sister being taken away by the villagers and had tried to escape three times herself already.

The first time had taken place when she had been nothing but a baby carried by her mother, but it had failed and cost the three oldest rebellious Overlands their lives. Setting an example for the rest of the family and killed any dreams of escape for a couple of years after that.

The second attempted had been led by Nightlight’s oldest daughter and Onyx's aunt. It had taken five years for them to break down a hole in the wall with makeshifts tools without the villager’s knowledge and created a chance to escape the sealed cabin.

Onyx's aunt and her brother had been the first to crawl out of the cabin, but the plan had been exposed as one of the prisoners had become stuck in the hole. Her aunt and brother had run and never returned, which gave the rest of the family hope that at least two of them had reached freedom.

Since then, the cabin had been guarded with double shifts and dogs. Less food and medicine had been brought to the cabin as a punishment.

The conditions had worsened shortly after and the inbreeding and filthy conditions had already taken the lives of many of the cabin occupant, leaving few and fewer Overlands to become sacrificed as the years went by.

When the time came for a new victim to be selected, Onyx had been the oldest of the Overland’s and therefore the next in line.

Her third escape attempt had happened the day of her death. Had Onyx been more educated, she could almost have called it ironic, that her first confrontation with the world should be that day she was destined to leave it again.

The meeting with the outside world had almost been too much for the young woman, but she had kept a clear head and played the sick cursed Overland whore, the villagers took her for.

As they led her to her doom, she had finally seen her chance and pulled out the sharp piece of stone she had honed for five years and stabbed an eye out on the farmer who had been appointed to chain her.

Onyx had run without a direction as the dogs was send after her and given it all she got. Since the cabin had been her entire world for 20 years, she had never seen a forest with her own eyes before and too late realized that she had run into the cursed woods, as the dogs had stopped the chase and the trees had closed in on her.

By nightfall, Onyx had collapsed from running and the shadows had surrounded her. The shadows had toyed with their victim like cats for hours and made ready for the final strike that would spill her blood, when the lord of the forest had stepped forward and found interest in her.

Pitch had with great fascination regarded this wild human, so unlike the rest of the humans he had ever known and found her far more suited to live like the rest of the creatures in his forest, than any manmade stone building.

Like the angel of mercy, he had awakened the fairy blood in her, given from the fairy queen to Nightlight and made Onyx his first child. With the fairy blood running through her and essence of the dawn of night, the night-fairy Onyx had been born.

With vengeance running like gold in her veins, she had become Pitch’s right hand and commander of his shadows, even after others of Nightlight's blood had followed in her footsteps and joined Pitch’s court.

For many years, Onyx had been Pitch’s most faithful and loyal child, more bloodthirsty than any other shadow or fairy in his court and had taken a great pride in never failing the prince of the forest. 

Until now.

“All you had to do, was bringing me my bride,” Pitch seethed with a slow hard voice and Onyx golden eyes widened in fear.

"It wasn’t my fault, my lord! The light! They created the light - it was the fearlings job to secure that – "

Pitch raised his hand to hit and the night-fairy cowered, engulfed by the fear his magic captured her in. The other fairies and former Overlands stepped back to avoid being involved in their prince’s anger and waited for the situations outages.

Pitch regained his senses and let his hand fall. The wrinkles which had furrowed his nose in an almost animal expression, smoothed out and his usual arrogance took its place as a veil of granite.

"Fine,” he drawled and turned to watch the cabin with murder in the eclipse eyes, “let those filthy humans have their last hour of rest. For tonight, all their pathetic scrambling and light bringing will be for nothing.”

He turned back to his children and opened his arms in invitation.

They came willingly to him and he enveloped them in his powerful magic and protection, “my bride and your soon to be prince is weakened. He needs our help. And since we can’t come to him, let’s make the humans bring him to us.”

The young Jill giggled elated and Pitch lifted her chin with a fatherly smile, "tell me again children ... how does humans lure rats out of their holes again? Oh yes, they smoke them out and play the game of waiting. Let's see if we can do something similar, shall we? "

-

Tooth watched as Aster searched the cabin for all that just had the slightest residue of iron in it and hung it up in primitive constructions above the windows and doors. Tooth carried the pots and pans he had handed her and followed him around the cabin without a word.

She opened her mouth to share her troubles, but halted and remained silent. Aster noticed nothing, completely engrossed in his project. The group of tools he had tried to put up with shoelaces, fell down due to the heavy weight and he swore furious and cursed the tools unwillingness to cooperate.

“Aster,” she tried again, but he just brushed past her. Mumbled something about "more string".

Tooth watched him and when he disappeared out eye length, her gaze automatically wandered to the couch, where Jack was hiding. Tooth swallowed. The picture of Jack’s white locks still fresh in the mind.

She had listened closely to all that Aster had been able to tell her about the monsters of the forest, but during the sharing he had avoided getting into the most central part of the whole matter.

Why were the fairies after them?

Tooth got stomach cramps by the mere thought of her theory, but ignored it. They had to talk about this. She had already tried to get in on the subject with Aster, tried to discuss whether Jack could be what attracted them, but Aster hadn’t seemed too fond of the theory and how could she blame him?

If only North was here ...

She bit back the tears and forced herself to hang the last pots in front of the window. She could cry over North and Sandy when they’d gotten away from this horrible place. If only they’d never come. If only they’d never listened to ...

_No! Don’t blame Jack. Jack had nothing to do with this!_

She scrunched her eyes tightly together and pressed her forehead against the cold pane of the window. Tried to push some cold sense into her emotional head. Her foolish head that continued to look for an easy scapegoat.

She opened her eyes and looked toward the lighted courtyard. There were no shadows or long-fingered monsters to see, but now that she was aware, she could almost sense them out there.

Imagine she saw or could make out a form or figure moving out there in the shade of the forest, or at the base of a hanging tree. Sense them returning her gaze.

Sense their hatred.

Their hunger.

Their yearning ...

But why Jack? Tooth knew why deep down, but the idea of a fairy claiming Jack and sending an army of monsters after them to get him back was almost too much.

But what about Jack's transformation?

Tooth looked back at the veiled figure on the couch. Jack had refused to show his face since they got the lights on again and protested in fear when Aster had tried to light up the fireplace.

Tooth still hadn’t mentioned Jack’s hair to Aster, but the longer she waited, the more delicate and important it seemed. Tooth wasn’t stupid. The way Jack’s heat strokes and cold came and went, was anything but naturel.

Tooth was more than positively sure that Jack should have been dead by now, to be honest. There was something that affected him and that something appeared to be light.

She thought back to the feverishness state he had suffered, while the light had been on and sudden change to almost hypothermic shaking when the light had gone out.

Jack reacted to light.

And so did the monsters…

”Aster.”

The australian knocked his head against the top of the cupboard he had been half buried in and looked up at her hard tone, "what!? Are we being attacked!?"

She shook her head and sat down with him behind the kitchen counter, "Aster, we have to talk about Jack."

"What about him?" came it nonchalant from Aster, who had returned to his search for iron in the cupboards. Avoided all eye contact with her. Tooth was not slow to notice the warning connotation in his voice.

She chose to ignore it and put a hand down on the pot he had been about to examine, "Aster, listen to me. There’s something very wrong with Jack. His hair ... half of it had turned white."

This time Aster stopped his work. He turned and looked at her now, but his eyes revealed nothing.

“And? Listen we have to find a way to hang up this –”

"Chalk-white," she stressed to make the seriousness of her words get through to him, "you know like when people get old within a very short time span or frightened as in myths. And it's not just his hair, you've seen his skin. He’s cold as ice, it shouldn’t be possible to be so cold."

"Don’t ya think I know!?" he shouted and Tooth shushed him quickly. They both looked toward the couch, but either Jack hadn’t heard them, or he didn’t care. Tooth hoped for the former.

"I know, okay," Aster continued, now more subdued and slid down on the floor next her. Looking utterly distressed.

"His roots were already white when I went up to apologize earlier, I just ignored it because ... I don’t know, mate. And it’s not only the roots now. I got a glimpse before we placed him on the couch. It's all white now, Tooth. It’s almost insanely. I can barely recognize him anymore and when some of the blanked fell from his face he…he hissed at the light. He hissed at the light, Tooth."

Tooth placed a hand on his shoulder to comfort him and he groaned in pain. His shoulder was still sore after the fight in the shed and Tooth looked at the bandage under his torn sweater. She bit her lip precariously.

"Aster, please don’t take this hasty, but ... when you were fighting those monsters out there in the shed, did they ... stung you? Bite you perhaps?"

He looked at her without a word and then shook his head, "no, only bruises. You?"

She shook her head to, "no. The light drove away the fairy, or whatever it was, before it could poke its needle finger through my eyeball. But…"

She looked back toward Jack, leaning forward with a whisper, "Jack has both scratches and bitemarks."

Aster covered his face and she grabbed his hand insistently, "Jack is about to change, Aster. We have to –"

" – Have to do what exactly, Tooth?" he suddenly snarled cautionary and swept her hand away with anger, "beat his head in like a mad dog with rabies? Is that what ya telling? Is _it!?_ "

"Of course not!" she burst out in shock and followed him as he got up and stomped back to the living room, "but we have to talk about this, Aster. We have to make a plan!"

"I have a plan," he spat back and threw a pot over to her, "secure the cabin until we get phone signal."

He returned to work with his pieces of iron, clearly not interested in continuing this conversation and Tooth scowled. She threw the pot down in a chair and turned around in an angry pirouette to leave the room, when her foot came under the room's only carpet and she fell face first.

Aster turned around, startled by the commotion, and hurried to Tooth as she lay groaning on the floor, " _cricky_ , ya okay, mate?"

Tooth wincing sourly and pulled her foot free, "yes, I just got tangled in ..."

The rest of the sentence died between her lips, as it dawned on her that she had torn a part of the carpet off the floor. Tooth had otherwise accepted the fact that the old stained carpet was as good as welded to the floor, when not even North had been able to remove it during their cleanup of the cabin.

But now it seemed that she had gotten the foot under it. Literally.

Aster frowned at the sight of the uprooted corner of the carpet. A black smudge showed where the carpet had been lying on the floor and black dust sprinkled dryly from the old carpet. Both Tooth and Aster recognized the sweet rotten smell and looked at each other.

Aster grabbed the loose corner of the carpet without a word and pulled. More of the carpet let go of the floor and long black threads stretched sticky from the moist middle of the carpet.

The last of the carpet let go and revealed an old hatch. It was closed shut with an old padlock, but it looked rusty enough that a single kick from a boot could break it. Tooth reached towards the handle.

Aster grabbed her hand, ”don’t.”

”Why?” she asked a little confused. Curious to discover the reason why the hatch had been covered up and what it had to do with the fairies.

"We don’t know what's down there, mate."

"But it could be a way out," Tooth insisted, "or there might be something useful down there. Maybe another hatch leading out of the cabin."

"Another reason not to draw attention to it. If there’s an dark entrance down there to the cabin and a way for the fairies to enter, we’ll be screwed. If we don’t draw attention to this basement, or whatever it is, then the fairies may not even know it's there. We should keep this to our self for as long as possible, especially is there no light down there. Don’t go where light can’t reach.”

Tooth sighed and let the handle be. She watched without a word as Aster covered the hatch with the carpet again. Her disgruntled countenance quickly changed to confusion as Aster placed a polaroid-camera in her hands.

"The flash should work like the light from a flashlight, just stronger. It can probably stun ‘em if they come too close. And this –"

He handed her two iron bars with duct tape wrapped around the ends.

" –should be able to cut through ‘em like a hot knife through butter."

She hung the camera around her neck and held tentatively the two ‘sword’ in each hand. Swung them around to get used to the weight and twirled the blade experimentally. She hummed and guessed them to be usable.

"What about you?" she asked quietly and he lifted a machine from the dining table. Tooth whistled impressed, "really? A wireless nail gun? "

"Iron nails," he explained and taped two flashlights firmly to the machines sides with duct tape.

"I bought it when I was down the village to get the broken window repaired. Good thing that I emptied the car before I went out to search for Jack, otherwise it would have been out in the middle of the woods right now."

The little armament was suddenly interrupted when all the lights in the cabin blinked at once. The lighted flashed and went off, and then lit up again. Both Tooth and Aster had held their breath and Tooth gasp as the electric lights blinked rapidly, before returning to life again.

"Running dry already !?" Aster asked bewildered and looked over at the clock. It showed 12:34. The brightest time of day, if any, despite the overcast weather.

Jack who hadn’t moved for several hours, suddenly sat up. He was still covered with blankets and turned his head toward the windows, without a word. Aster couldn’t see Jack's face, but he slowly began to realize that Jack was listening.

Chills ran down Aster's spine like a cold finger as the haunting sound of muttering and whispering voices slowly began to increase. The lights flashed again.

Tooth ran to the window and looked out toward the shed. Aster followed her, saw that the shed was still standing and there was still light in the yard, but it flashed rapidly.

Two lights outside went out.

More shadows moved in on the darkened side of the cabin and Tooth cried out as a shadow placed a hand against the window behind Aster. It hissed by the light of the cabin interior, but still tried to break the glass.

Making a long crack with its fist.

Aster raised the nail gun and fired. The iron nail shattered the glass pane and hit the shade clean between the eyes. It disappeared as it fell, but more took its place.

They screamed as the hanging pots prevented them from entering the cabin and retreated with pained shrieks and the smell of burning flesh. More shadows gathered by the other windows on the darkened side, looking for a weak point in the cabins defense and knocked eagerly on the windows with claws and fists.

The window next to Tooth broke in a shower of glass and Tooth raised the polaroid-camera around her neck and photograph the shadows. The sharp flash got the shadows to go over backwards in shock and the others behind them withdrew from the window.

Enraged and blinded.

Several windows were smashed as the shadows became wilder and Aster fired several nails to keep up with them. Tooth stuck her sword though one of the windows and felt a sudden rush of revenge as the shadow screamed and dissolved into nothing.

In the heat of the moment, Aster got to close to one of the windows and fought to get the black hands of his nail gun and fired with a roar.

Tooth was too preoccupied with the struggle to keep their defense, that she didn’t notice the cold at first. But as the windows were shattered and her sweat became cold against her skin, she realized that the frost slowly but surely was taking over the cabin.

Clouds stood out from her and Aster’s mouths in their efforts, and soon the cold had crept under their clothes and made it difficult to handle their weapons, as their hands began to shake and hurt.

A heavy bump from the couch informed Tooth that Jack had left the cushions and she ran over to where he tried to climb across the floorboards.

"Jack!" she exclaimed and tried to get him to his feet, but he was still too weak to stand on his own and the teen screamed in pain as the blanked slid off his face and let the light in. Tooth rushed to cover him again, ignoring the sight of his now completely white hair and transparent skin.

"Aster! We have to move Jack!"

"She's out there," Jack muttered in a voice that was barely a whisper, "she’s calling me, Tooth. I can’t –"

"Jack, stop it," Tooth pleaded when Jack tried to drag her towards one of the shattered windows.

Even through the blankets she could feel the chill from his body and some of the blankets had even become crispy with frost. She cried out when a group of shadows tried ripping down the pots in front of the window Jack had tried to pull her towards and the shadows screamed furiously at them.

Jack shuddered by the sound and grabbed his head under the blankets, "please stop ..."

"Aster, we have to get Jack out of here!" Tooth continued and Aster fired several nails when a new group of shadows tried to enter through the windows. He was drenched in sweat and wiped his brow to see clearly.

"Tooth! Take Jack and go to the attic!"

"We’re not going anywhere without you!" she shouted back, trying to get a grip on Jack, who was trashing and muttering to himself.

"Stop .... please ... stop it ..."

Tooth gasped when the blankets suddenly became stiff with frost and release Jack as the floor beneath him was covered with frost patterns. Ice spreading across the floor and running up the walls.

He swayed from side to side on shaky legs and raised a weak hand under the blanket. The wind around the cabin grew stronger and began to howl like a large animal.

Jack muttered to himself and Tooth began to tremble as the cold grew stronger and caused the temperatures to drop like a stone. Snow began to fly in from the broken windows and landed on the cabins floor like a light preview of the storm had risen outside the cabin.

Both Tooth and Aster watched with open mouth, as the shadows was cast aside by the strong wind and the many pots and pans flew out and into the storm. Soon the sound of screams and hisses ceased and there was only the howling of the wind.

Jack started to shake violently and let out a pained moan. Aster threw what he had in his hands and hurried to grab Jack, before he fainted and collapsed on the floor. Ice broke off the blanket and fell to the ground around Aster, as he knelt to hold around Jack’s lifeless form.

Tooth watched breathlessly while the storm slowly decreased and faded away into nothing. Soon the pots stopped their chattering and the wind dropped again as if it had never been there. The light in the cabin flashed, but remained on and silence descended like a blanket over the cabin.

Tooth let go off the breath she didn’t know she had held between chattering teeth and felt the cold chill her to the marrow. Light dusting of snow sprinkled from the snowy windowsills and fell to the living room's ice-covered floor without a sound.

Heavy frost had covered most of the walls and floors and by the sight of it, and Tooth guessed the hidden hatch was as good as frozen shut with ice.

Aster looked up now that the peace had settled and shared a long glance with Tooth.

None of them knew how and if was even safe to address what had just occurred or not. Tooth had no words, but leaped in alarm when one of the still whole windows were smashed and a bundle landed in the middle of the living room floor.

Aster had pulled the unconscious Jack close to him in fright and used his body as a shield, since he for a split second had thought it was a shadow that was entered. He watched the black bundle on the floor, not knowing what to expect and it was Tooth who ended up approached it with wary steps.

She used one of her homemade sword to ensure that the bundle wasn’t alive and unfolded it with the iron bar. The black sticky bundle opened and turned out to be a yellow scarf, soaked in a mixture of the black goo and red blood.

Aster felt anger gather like an angry creature inside him, as both he and Tooth recognized Sandy's scarf. Tooth uttered a pained sound when North’s gold ring rolled out of the bloody package and landed before her small feet.

She picked it up with trembling hands, leaving a circle of blood on the floor and pressed the rings against her chest with a sob.

Aster clenched his teeth in rage, "they’re trying to lure us outside, we can’t fall for it."

Tooth didn’t answer, just tightened the grip on the ring and stroked a hand across a corner of the blood-soaked scarf.

Her lower lip trembled, "but we can’t stay here either..."

Aster knew she was right. There wasn’t a window back still in mint condition and most of his iron setups had become scattered around the yard and out of reach. The shadows had been driven off as well, but they would return and find the cabin unprotected.

The generator would run out of gas eventually and leave them at the fairies’ mercy. Jack was as good as dead between his hands and could just as well have been a sculpture of ice, as cold as he had become.

Silently, Aster lifted a corner of the blanket from Jack's face and found his boyfriend’s serene, but colorless face. If it hadn’t been for Jack’s regular breathing, Aster could had taken him for a corpse.

Small blisters and burning redness began to spread across Jack's cheeks and Aster cover him once again. Kept him away from the light and the only thing that ensured them life.

He didn’t have to look up to know Tooth had seen it all and pressed his face against the cold blanket that separated him from Jack's face. It was so cold it almost hurt, but even if it would give him frostbite, he didn’t give a damn.

He just wanted to be with Jack.

Tooth looked at them with a heavy heart and knew it was implausible, but nevertheless wished for an easy way out of this. She didn’t know if Jack would become a shadow or not, but it was clear that he was beginning to change into something else.

Something that wasn’t human.

She didn’t know what it would come to mean for Aster, but something told her it wouldn’t end well. Love couldn’t fix everything.

She looked down at North's ring. Love hadn’t saved North. It hadn’t saved Sandy. It wouldn’t save any of them. This was reality and reality wasn’t a fairy tale. Fairies or not.

She closed her eyes in acceptance when the cabin's lights blinked. The lamps switched between light and dark, like a dying heartbeat before the last spark died out and the cottage was lowered into the embrace of darkness.

It was afternoon, but at this moment there was no difference between day and night. There was only one way from here and neither Aster or Tooth had any illusions left about rescue.

It was over.

Tooth closed her eyes. She placed the ring in her pocket and tightened her grip around her two swords. If she were to die it would be on her terms and she prepared herself for the upcoming attack.

North would probably had wanted that her to flee, not only for her own sake, but their unborn child's, but Tooth had never liked taking orders from anyone.

And even if the ran…how far would they even get before they were surrounded again? Might as well take the fight here where they at least had walls around them.

They both listened to the heavy beats of the clock on the mantelpiece, waiting for the shadows to return with their haunting sighs and whispers.

Both Aster and Tooth's muscles tensed when a low murmur began to build up outside and slowly approached with a roar. Aster listened, but then frowned. There was something about the sound that seemed… out of place and it suddenly dawned on him it was nothing like a bestial roar or assembly of murmuring voices.

The cabin's living room was suddenly bathed in a sea of white light, blinding both of them, when two headlights hit the side of the cabin. An old beaten pickup truck braked besides the cabin and sent the snow outside flying up on the side of the cabin.

Both Aster and Tooth was frozen for a second, before the hurried to their feet and the honk of the impatiently car lead them to rush to the sealed front door.

The large foglights on the pickup's rusty sides almost blinded Tooth and Aster as they ran out into the snow and made it impossible for them to see the driver. Not that it worried them at the moment, any life-line was more than appreciated.

Gratefully Tooth opened the car door, when she was the fastest of them and shooed Aster into the car, as he carried the veiled Jack out of the cabin. Both felt their pulses rise when the warning cries from the darkness reached them and shadows began to flicker in the corner of their eyes.

Aster slammed the door shut and looked up at the driver in the front seat.

A wide-eyed Jamie Bennet had turned around to face them.

"Hold on!" he shouted and pressed the pedal to the metal.


	14. But I have promises to keep

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *inhales* smell that?  
> it's the smell of stress, anxiety and students sweating in their little shoebox apartments, working on their exams  
> oh and christmas of course  
> stay focused and sane out there, I fell ya!  
> Hope you enjoy  
> leave a comment if you feel like it
> 
> * * *

“Whadda' ya' mean we can’t leave the area or go to the village! You’re not making a lotta sense, Jamie!”

Jamie winced by Aster's harsh words, but held on to his statement, “the roads have been closed because of the blizzard. They’re maintaining roadblocks as we speak and preventing people from leaving the village. I’m only here because I was caught by surprise back at the gas-station and let through.”

Jamie made a resolute face that wouldn’t tolerate any contradictions, but neither Aster nor Tooth would be anything near satisfied with his vague explanations.

They had put the cabin and the shadows behind them when Jamie had picked up speed and followed the road through the forest.

It was far from cleared and the snow was deep, but the old pickup appeared to be made of something stronger than most cars and the snow-chains around the winter tires helped a lot on their slow but steady progress.

Where they were going, no one knew for sure, not even Jamie, who refused to set them an actual course.

"Jamie, if we can’t leave the area, then at least drive us to the village," Tooth insisted in a gentler tone. Tried to be the rational of the two and reach out to Jamie.

"Both North and Sandy have been murdered and Jack is badly wounded – we need medical help! Anything! And we have to warn people about these creatures!”

"The village is safe, it's only you they’re after – and no, I’m not taking you guys to the village under no circumstance. They will..." Jamie stopped mid-sentence, failed to follow up and grimaced in the rearview mirror, "if you had just stayed away from the forest and kept the peace as I told you from the start, none of this would have happened in the first place! Don’t you get it!? _Hallowed be their name, And blessed be their claim. If you who trespass put down roots, Then Hallowed be your name_ – the book of innovation chapter 1150. It’s all in the book!”

"What book?" Aster asked in frustration and Jamie waved a hand irritated,

"The book Jack took when my mother drove him out of my house with a riffle!"

"So it was _you_ people who chased Jack into the forest!"

Tooth felt it was time for her to intervene and forced herself in-between, "stop it! We won’t find a solution to this by fighting – Jamie, I'm sorry, but your book must have been lost somewhere out there when Jack was attacked in the woods. But it’s not your fault."

She gave Aster a warning glace and he crossed his arms, sulking in seething anger.

She turned back to Jamie," but we need your help now. Jack was badly injured and need all the help he can get, I beg you – take us to a doctor! Anything will do."

Jamie sighed and turned half around in his seat, "you don’t understand, the village is probably the last place you guys want to be right now. The elderly has – "Jamie stopped his flow of words as his eyes caught the sight of Jack's half-covered face.

He gasped and stood on the brakes. Everyone in the car was thrown forward, since no one had thought of seat belts and Aster groaned as he hit his head.

“Bloody hell! Jamie, what the –”

“Oh my god,” Jamie whispered with a hand coming up to cover his mouth, unable to take his widened eyes of the unconscious Jack in Aster’s lap, “it’s true then…they really do turn humans…”

Aster hurried to pull the blanket over Jack and returned Jamie’s stare with eyes that promised murder. Jamie forced himself to lower his gaze and ran a trembling hand through his wild hair.

"Please," Tooth begged him and grabbed his hand between her own two, "you'll have to help us. Jack's life depends on it. Take us to the nearest doctor, hospital, wet, just anything, Jamie."

"There’s no hospital that can help him," he whispered and tried to pull his hand away, but she kept his hand in a firm grip and looked at him with eyes that couldn’t survive anymore rejections.

" _Please_. Help him."

Jamie looked at them with doubt and uncertainty colored his eyes. They darted between the road and them, before they ended up on the covered Jack. He swallowed audibly and then nodded hesitantly.

"My ... my grandfather's library might have some books that can help us. It's mostly just stories about fairies and the area, but maybe ..."

"Thank you," Tooth exhaled relieved and a shadow of a wry smile crept over Jamie's face and he squeezed her hand.

A stone hit the rear window and knocked a long gash in the glass. Jamie gasped, going rigid with fright and watched with open mouth as the darkness came to life and moved in on the pickup truck.

More rocks and ice came flying and hit the car, showered the car like the main target in a mean snowball fight and inflicted the car's sides with dents and scratches when they didn’t hit the windows.

“ _Fuck!_ ” Jamie cried out and Tooth threw her hands up in reflex as another large stone made a large crack in her window.

Aster stood in his seat.

He had had enough.

He placed Jack securely on Tooth's lap, swung himself into the front seat, kicked Jamie aside and grabbed the wheel. The gearstick was twisted three gears down and the car accelerated up to 60 kilometers per hour as it was brought back into action.

Jamie screamed as the car flew forward in a hard trust and scattered the snow in all directions. Aster ignored him and drove forward before he pulled the handbrake and managed to turn the car around 180 degrees.

The heavy fog lamps flared up and the car shot forward toward the enemy.

The shadows screamed as the car came towards them at high speed and bathed them in the light. Jamie cried out in panic at the sight of the creatures and the car was running straight at them. Aster maintained its course with a look of steel and speeded up to 200.

Tooth clicked her seatbelt without a word and pushed Jack to her chest for dear life.

"We're dead! We're dead! We're dead!" Jamie ranted panicked and threw his arms up to cover his face. Aster gritted his teeth and steered the car into the middle of the shadows with a roar.

The many screaming bodies smashed against the car with loud smacks and shook the passengers to the core, making their teeth rattled and ears go deaf. Black blood filled the windshield and was smeared out, as Aster had been predictive enough to turn on the windshield wipers.

The smaller shadows were dissolved into black smoke by the meeting with the car's hard bumper, while the larger and more corporal ones broke or was slung across the roof. The wheels slipped several times as more went under the car and Aster jerked the steering wheel to keep the car on the road.

More rocks and primitive clubs of wood was beaten against the car windows, and long tears mingled with the incipient cracking.

The blanket of darkness that had prevailed in the shadows midst, was pulled aside like a veil when the car broke out on the other side and past the last shadows.

Cries and furious wails sounded behind them, but Aster had only one direction and that was towards safety. The village.

It was impossible to see through the window that was now nothing but a network of cracks and Aster pounded his already bloody fist against the windshield, until the glass pane's rubber ring let go of the frame and the window flew past the car and sprinkled them in huge pieces of laminated glass.

”Oh no,” Tooth muttered as Aster turned to a side road and onto the same shortcut North had cleared a few days earlier. Branches with heavy layers of snow hit the car in a noisy cascade of whiplash and sprayed them with snow.

Jamie almost hung himself in his seat belt as Aster steered the pickup between the two large trees and out onto the open moor.

North’s old wheel track were still tactile under the snow and Aster stayed in their channel, while they bumped across the open white land and towards the first houses forthright.

-

The night-fairy Onyx hissed furiously after the human vehicle and whipped her long black hair as she screamed to the heavens in rage. Her golden eyes blazed with the humiliation of defeated and the shadows quivered around her as they writhed between her long legs.

Waiting for further instructions.

A couple of the fallen fearling and nightmare-men regained some of their strengths and reformed, while others had been reduced to nothing but black goo and mist. Onyx sneered by the puny sight and her own uselessness.

A water fairy separated himself from the crowd of shadows and placed himself by her side with humor in his steps. His sea-green eyes and algae-braided hair dripping from his constantly drenched body and melted the snow below his bare bluish feet.

As a human, he had been a distant cousin in the seventh indent to Onyx, but just like her, Nightshade's blood ran thick in his veins and had assured him their prince's favor after he’d been sent off into the woods by the villagers one summer night many years ago.

He hadn’t spoken since the day he had been transformed in the muddy forest lake, but Onyx understood his gaze, as she had been forced to compelled his presence for some time.

Small sharp teeth like those of a freshwater gar, peeped out between his grinning lips. The words were clear in his humored eyes.

_Oh my. They are heading towards the village._

"I know," she scowled and her blood-brother’s snickering filled the evening like the sound of a forest brooks chuckle.

_They’re seeking refuge in the village. What do you think the prince will say?_

She crossed her pale arms and snorted scornfully, “he’s going to die from laughter.”

-

The car stopped outside the village square and Aster left the engine idling as he pulled the handbrake and jumped out to help Tooth with Jack.

Jamie was still a shaking mess back at the front seat, but returned to his senses when they started running towards the square with Jack inbetween them.

“Wait! _No_ , the books are back at my house! We have to go there, not here!”

“We’re taking Jack to the doctor, you get the books!” Tooth yelled back, ignoring Jamie's cries of protests. She didn’t understand why he was against returning to the village, but it meant nothing now.

They were here and they could get Jack indoors. That was the most important thing.

Tooth suddenly slipped and regained her balance on the slippery cobblestones, as they had reached the square and Aster took over Jack in a bridal-style grip as they ran. Most of the village seemed just as dead as a ghost town and no light was anywhere to bee see, either at the market or between the shutters on the murky buildings.

"Hello!?" Aster shouted tentatively.

“Anyone here!? We need a doctor!” Tooth chimed in, but no one answered them.

Jack moved a bit and a little of his face peeped out from the blanket like a hood. Aster felt his heart drop, when he looked down and discovered that Jack's right eye had changed.

An icy-blue color like those seen amongst older people with cataracts was all that was left of the eyes Aster had once loved. Trembling, he pressed Jack closer to him as if his warmth could heal Jack somehow and the enveloped teen looked up at them with eyes that didn’t seem to see the same world as them.

"Is’t all my fault, isn’t it?"

“No, Jack,” Tooth replied tenderly and made sure that no light would burn him, "just stay with us, help is close now."

Jack blinked tiredly and the dark circles under his eyes had become as heavy as those of a panda.

"I didn’t mean it to end like this. I just wanted us to have fun. Make some memories. I thought I could close the door to the past, but instead I just opened new ones ... I'm sorry."

“Oh, rack off,” Aster gritted out between quivering lips, “don’t make me drop you or something, Frost.”

Jack smiled by the sound of Aster’s paltry wits and laughed hoarsely. The fun only lasted a moment as Jack’s laughter turned into a coughing fit and his body curled up in pain. Pressed his hands to his mouth.

Tooth gasped as black blood sprinkled out between Jack’s fingers and onto the white snow, but Aster would have none of it. He simply ignored it and forced them forward without a word.

“Somebody! C’me on!!”

“There,” Tooth said hopeful and pointed straight ahead. A group of villagers were gathered in a small group in the middle of the square and seemed to be unaware of the trio's presence. To busy handing out blankets, extra flashlights and boxes of food and supplies between the nearest houses.

Probably making rounds and securing that everyone was prepared for the upcoming weather and possible storms.

Both Tooth and Aster felt hope sprout in them and hurried towards the group, “help! Our friend is hurt and needs medical assistance!”

The group turned to them and watched as they ran up to them. Aster panted from his struggles and straightened Jack a little to get a better grip.

"Please, we were out in the blizzard when one of our friend was murdered in the woods. We’re chased back to the cabin, where another of us were massacred. They hurt Jack here and infected him with something. We need all the medical help you can provide. He’s badly beaten and need immediate assistance."

The men and women listened attentively to their words and looked at each other for a moment. Aster and Tooth looked expectant at them, awaiting that someone would lead them, or at least point them in the direction of their nearest emergency room. Responding in some fashion.

But nothing happened.

The villagers just looked at them. All with the same expressionless face, as were the teens agonies indescribable boring to them. Tooth looked from one to the other.

Why ... why where they just standing there?

The villagers didn’t move until a single person made them step aside and they all turned to the person, as she walked to stand in front of the trio. Clearly taking the stand as the group’s leader and spokesperson.

Aster scowled as he recognized Mrs. Bennet.

She regarded them briefly with an unimpressed snarl. Let her eyes glide across them and the primitive weapons attached to their hips and backs. Noted their bloody and bruised state with the same interest as a cleaning lady noticing a cumbersome stain.

Her face first betrayed real reaction when the brown eyes ended up on Jack. Like a magnet, he had lifted his own eyes to meet hers and the brown globes met a blue and brown for a long second.

The sound of a loaded rifle rang out through the silent square and Mrs. Bennet pointed the rifle at them, in the same manner her father had once pointed his at Jack's mother six years ago.

"What the hell!?" Aster exclaimed startled and Tooth took gasping a step back at the sight.

"Wait! What are you –"

"You shouldn’t have brought him here. You only enrage them further.”

Tooth forced herself to tear her eyes from the gun orifice and meet Mrs. Bennet’s gaze, “It…I-It wasn’t our intent. They just – You have to help u-”

"There is a pact between the people of this village and the forest," Mrs. Bennet sneered with a cold clear voice, while the other villager backed up around her in silent unison.

"It was a good pact, a pact that created great prosperity and security for us and our ancestors for many years. It wasn’t a pact we took upon us voluntarily, but we made it _work_! Until an Overland," she pointed to Jack with the rifle and spat in disgust, “broke his part of the contract and pulled us all into his curse."

Aster blinked. Utterly confused by the turn the whole situation had taken, "I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. What is? What?"

One of the older men from the group scoffed and took a stand beside Mrs. Bennet's right, "it doesn’t matter if you understand or not, the only thing that you need to understand, is how fragile that peace is. A good sacrifice provides 9 long good years. A poor sacrifice will mean the death of many children."

Mrs. Bennet and three others made a pained expression and the old man nodded to himself before he continued, "but when all is said and done, all this damage only happened because there was once a man who forgot the most important rule when dealing with fairies."

He sent them a look of almost precocious dimension, "that abandonment of an object touched by fairies is the only solution we as humans can hope for. What the children of the forest claims will never be worth the fight.”

All their indifferent gazes turned to Jack and a young woman stepped up to Mrs. Bennet's left, "give back what is claimed by the fairies. Not only for your own sake, but for our children. Too many have already lost their lives for the Overland family's sins. When the last Overland is sacrificed to the forest, the debt will be paid and we will all be safe."

Both Aster and Tooth had automatically taken several steps back from the group during the entire speech. Unable to believe what they were hearing. Aster pulled Jack protective to him with a bewildering face.

He stared at them and realized these people was for real. They wanted Jack dead.

“Are ya completely _insane!?_ Sacrifice him? What is wrong with ya fellas!?”

A glimpse of an uniform caught Aster’s attention and he recognized the officer who had visited them back when the window had been smashed.

”Hey! Officer! Yeah you! Are ya just gonna stand there and listen to this shit?”

The old village-officer looked down and avoided meeting Aster and Tooth’s glance. He didn’t seem ashamed, but wouldn’t acknowledge them either. He simple turned around and walked away.

"There you see," Mrs. Bennet continued, "there is nothing for you to get here. You are not welcome here."

Tooth laid a hand over Aster’s arm, warned him not to do anything hasty and looked at the various villagers in turn, hoping to find a sympathetic face. But none of them seemed to disagree with Mrs. Bennet’s statement.

“But…where would we go then?” Tooth asked.

The older man from the hardware store pointed toward the woods, "go to the forest boundary and leave him there. If you don’t have the balls to sacrifice his blood yourself, just leave it to the forest. Releasing an Overlands into the woods seems to be the way the fairies like it these days."

Aster's face contorted into a despicable snarl, "shut up you crazy-hillbilly ratbags! I'm gonna kill ya!"

Tooth grabbed him and held him back from attacking Mrs. Bennet or the older man. The older woman had made ready to fire and several of the other villager raised their own weapons.

”Don’t you see!?” the young woman from the group yelled and broke down in tears, "it's the same trick the Overlands does every time. They always try to use others for their own gain and pulls them down into their curse. If they don’t trick people into dying in their place, they'll run and leave the punishment to our children and brothers and sisters!"

The older man from the hardware store stepped forward and aimed now directly at Jack's head, "those two Overlands should never have left it to us to pay their punishment back in 1800! My two girls would still be alive if that Overland bitch hadn’t left this kid back in Burgess six years ago!"

Tooth’s grip on Aster tightened as all the little puzzle pieces fell into place and her eyes widened in understanding.

"It was you," she whispered, horrified, "it was you who sent the deed of the cabin to Jack. That’s why it wasn’t send to his foster family first. It was you who lured us here."

Mrs. Bennet just shrugged, no sense of guilt in her voice, "it has taken generations to trace all the Overlands around the states, but luckily for us, Maria and Oven Overland and their children, continued to keep their family name despite marriages. People come willingly if you tell them they have inherited a forest cabin. It has taken years to track down all of them, but soon the curse will be over. We have paid our debt."

“You won’t get away with this,” Aster sneered, "the police will come and look for us. There will be investigations and professional examinations out in the cabin. There’re people who know that we’re here, powerful people like Sandy and Tooth’s family. There will be witnesses, people have seen us here!"

A blank expression spread among the residents.

"How? When you were never here?"

Tooth didn’t know who had spoken, but the way things went down at the moment, it could have been any of them. Their faces were so similar that the entire group appeared as almost the same. The same haircolor, eyes and facial features. 

Each gaze radiated the same aversion of them, the same hatred of Jack. The same indifference concerning the teens fate.

"You were never here," one said.

"You never arrived to the village," another added.

"You never turned and took the right road to the village after the gas-station."

"You never turned up to receive the key to the cabin."

"You paid with cash for all your supplies in the village. No credit card was traced here."

"No strangers have arrived to the village in years."

"We haven’t seen anything."

"You were never here."

Tooth felt fear shoot through her. The villagers had slowly but firmly began walking toward them, charging their weapons and made a better grip on the small arms that had been hiding in the crowd. 

Aster to seemed to have realized that the village people had grown tired of waiting for their final "liberation" and retreated in line with the group's advance.

"911 knows we’re here," he warned with a voice that wasn’t nearly as confident as he might have liked, "how will ya that cover up, huh!?”

A man barely above his thirty, drew nearer, "prank call. It happens all the time, right?"

Tooth grabbed Aster’s hand hard enough to practically break it and was about to whisper a hasty plan into his ear, when the blessed sound of the old pickup progressed into in the town square and made a mad dash for the disheveled trio.

Several of the villagers jumped back in surprise, as the car slid across the icy cobblestones and stopped in between them and the teens. Aster and Tooth rushed to jump in with Jack in tow and Jamie jerked the gear lever.

He turned his head for a split second and met his mother's gaze.

She had shortly had a look of shock by the sight of her son, but it had quickly changed into something far worse. Disappointment. She shook her head in warning, but Jamie had already turned his back on her and put the car in reverse.

The group watched in silence as the car backed out of the square and made a quick three-point turn to continue out of town.

Several had wanted to shoot, but Mrs. Bennet had held them back with a raised hand. Her eyes followed the car long after it had disappeared from sight.

”You little fool…”

-

“Fools.”

Pitch looked across the moor with a sneer. Now that the night was almost upon them, there was no sun behind the clouds to keep them in the forest and no limit to his land other than his own morality.

The two fairies who had delivered the news of the human’s destination stood waiting in the shadow of his robe and waited for his further instructions.

Pitch knew this wasn’t exactly “good” news, but it was news that certainly had amused him as they had delivered the word of the humans next course.

He had no illusions or fears concerning what answer the small human’s plea for asylum, would receive from the villagers. What once had been a pious bunch of peasants who’d took him and his children for the devil juveniles, had eventually become his own herd of willing servants and executers.

Their annual sacrifices had strengthened his realm with more blood magic than anyone could have anticipated and been a steady stream of nourishment for his children. The fairy queen's blood had been a gift to Nightlight and a gift very few changelings could ever have hope to enjoy.

Becoming a true fae was now his gift to give. Not many fairies were as generous as Pitch's own mother, but Pitch thought he was righteous to his own subjects.

When his bride would be returned to his arms, Jack would be bestowed the same graces as Nightlight had once been bestowed, but this time it would be Pitch alone that would make a human his equal and bestow him the full transformation from human to fae.

Jack had already gotten a taste of his own magic and evolved into a changeling as they spoke. But their sudden separation was a problem. Jack had already spent most of his new magic and for every moment he deviated from Pitch proximity, the less nourishment the magic had to draw on and remain stable.

If Pitch didn’t get his bride back and completed the transformation from human to changeling and finally fae, he’d risked that Jack spent all his magic and his reserves would run dry.

If it didn’t kill him, he'd become a simple human-like creature again and Nightlight's blood would cease to be magical and become nothing but mundane.

He would lose Jack to mortality and humanity. Just as he had lost Nightlight.

Pitch closed his eyes in a moment of silence and tried to channel his burning anger and put it into a more usable form. Behind him, his children had sensed his mood and waves of fear and anxiety rolled off them like summer fog.

Pitch felt his pent-up anger and humiliation transformed into raw power and exhaled slowly. The two messengers straightened up as he turned around and faced them.

Onyx seems to expect her long life to come to a painful end, while her brother was twice as soaked as normal, nervousness running down his body like moisture and made his little smile turn into a pained grimace.

Pitch stared ahead and towards all of them rather than addressing the two alone.

"Humans," he laughed sinister, "oh, can you imagine the fear they must have felt when they realized these villagers are in our favor? What adorable scene it must have been? A pity none of us were there to taste their auras."

Several of his children sighed in annoyance or laughed by the thought. His youngest child, Jill, stepped forward, eager not to miss a thing. Pitch clasped his hands behind his back as he began to walk among them.

Stroke them like cats as he passed them one by one.

"Yes, I think that's what we all wanted, isn’t it, children? A real confrontation with these humans. We sent my fearlings after them, certainly, but the nightmare-men have probably never faced a similar challenge since the night Nightlight and his men tried to burn down my realm."

By the mere mention of the name of their ancestor, an angry murmur ran through the crowd of changelings and their displeasure with the former changeling’s treachery, tasted sweet as caramel on Pitch’s tongue.

He sighed and nodded with a melancholy expression.

"Oh Nightlight, Nightlight, Nightlight. He was the light I was promised and the prince who should had established the last part of our beloved realm. Ensured us a stable court with both light and darkness."

Pitch allowed the little melted snowflakes to restore in his hand and played with it as he danced with his fingers in the air. His children stared hungry after the small crystal lights and enjoyed that its light didn’t injured or burned them the least.

A winter-fairy would have secured all of them a land with six months’ free movements outside the forest and nights with his weather powers. A steadier flow of magic and home of balance.

The prince chuckled at their yearning moans, "yes, half a year of eternal darkness, that never gets old. Feel the cold light, children, come on."

They all stepped closer like moths drawn to a light and admired the drop of luminous ice. Pitch kept the alluring drop out in front of them, allowing them to feel for themselves the magic and nutrient hidden in the little drop and feel Jack’s potential powers.

Several stretched out their hands slowly, mesmerized and sighing as one. Jill stood on toes to get as much of her brother’s magic as possible. Relinquished in his absent and starving for his return to her.

“Come on, that's right. Yes...” he cooed and allowed them closer. Onyx who had kept her distance, eager not to arouse anymore of his displeasure with her, had slowly moved closer and looked hopefully towards the ice drop in his palm.

As a night-fairy, she was the child of his who had most problems enduring even the slightest of light and always withdrew from the surface by the mere talk of dawn.

A winter prince would give her a chance to be able to move further away from the wood's shades and enjoy the night and its magic without fear of the rays of dawn.

She reached out like the rest and Pitch closed his fist around the drop. Killing the light.

A sigh of disappointment ran through the entire flock and Onyx seemed to remember where she was and rapidly stepped out of his way. Pitch smirked and hid Jack’s magic away.

"That's why we must have our prince back. There can be no doubt that his safety and immediate return to our court is of the utmost necessity. I cannot tolerate any more mistakes," he warned with a hint of anger in his tone and several of his oldest children nodded in determination.

Keen to get their winter fairy back from the thieving humans.

Pitch couldn’t be more proud than now that he had the change to witness his children prepare for battle. He chuckled and smiled assured in his victory, as a new wave of fearlings and nightmare-men rose from his shadow.

The night was upon them.

“Now... I want you all to do as we planned: the wait is over!”

All his children ran out in the night with the help of their elements and disappeared along with his army towards the forest. Onyx made ready to become one with the night when Pitch stopped her with a light hand gesture.

"Not you, my girl."

Her black and white face immediately twitched in fear and she did her mentally preparations for her punishment with golden eyes convulsed in shame.

The forest prince quickly killed all her imagining of corporal punishment, as he laid a gentle hand on her shoulder and filled her with new magic.

"Do not fear, girl. I've only kept you here to ask you of a simple request."

Out of danger she seemed more sure of herself and lighted up. His words seemed to have increase her interest and her cocky personality returned as spring in April.

"Anything, my prince. You know that I will not disappoint you."

He had no doubt that she would do anything to succeed this time and laid his cloak over her bony shoulder as they walked towards the woods.

"As my first child, it has long been my intention to make you my successor," he said and made the trees withdraw their branch and move aside for them. Creating a path they could pass freely through without being flooded with low branches and bushes covered in snow.

"I would therefore ask you the same task as our queen in her time instructed me," he continued in a nonchalant voice, making it almost sounds trivial and laughed on the inside by the feeling of her zeal.

She hid it well under a neutral face, but you cannot hide your feelings for a true fae. He squeezed her shoulder in a fatherly gesture.

"Two of the infernal humans have already met their death and joined my arsenal of fearlings, the same will tonight be the fate of the human woman from the east, but the man with the sun on his skin, for him I have special plans. It was he who stole our prince. A simple death will never be able to pay the humiliation he has committed to the fullest. I have an adequate punishment in mind for him and something tells me it will fall gracefully along with your own task at hand."

A famine expressions slipped across the night-fairy’s pointy face as the drop reappeared in his palm. He stopped them in the middle of one of the forest's many clearings and led her to the middle of the snowy fairy-ring.

He gently grabbed one of her pale hands and placed it calmly over his own upturned palm, Making them both cup around the drop.

“Now, what I’m about to do will alter everything you’ve ever known.”


	15. And miles to go before I sleep

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Funny thing - Jamie wasn't even gonna play more than a side character in this fic - but what do ya know?  
> He just crashed right into my plot with his pickup truck and stayed put  
> Well good for you jamie *pads his head and hide the knife on my back*
> 
> * * *

”You idiots!” Jamie yelled and switched between letting his anger run over them and maintaining an eye on the road at the same time. 

"I told you not to go to the village! I told you specifically not to go there! But is anyone ever listening to me!? _Nooooo!_ Everyone is smarter than Jamie Bennet, everyone is experts on fairies and the people around here, everyone knows what they’re doing without the slightest background knowledge! ‘Cause that have working out for you perfectly, hasn’t it!? I can’t believe you’re still alive!"

Tooth was ashamed and decent enough to look down while Aster ignored Jamie and his accusations. He focused on the teen in his lap. Jack was in a kind of semi-consciousness, where he slipped in and out of sleep with small intervals and half mumbled, half moaned weakly.

Aster considered to check Jack's pulse, but what if there weren’t any?

He tore himself out of the unpleasant speculation and stopped Jamie in the midst of his rant, "did ya get any of ‘em books? Did ya head out to your house?"

Jamie sent him a look that clearly said 'what do you think?', “as if I had time for that! You guys were barely out of sight before a group of the elders passed by. I had to hide because ..."

Jamie sighed and rubbed his face with eyes that bore witness of great exasperation.

"After I closed the gas-station for the night and drove home, I couldn’t find my mother and was afraid if she had been caught in the storm. I went down to the village and saw lights in the pub, but for reasons I didn’t understand they had locked the door. They had drawn the curtains to, so I couldn’t see them, but I could hear them muttering and understood that most of the village had to be in there. I thought maybe they were having a crisis meeting or something like that and went for the back door to enter. I stopped in the hallway when I heard them talk about sacrificing Jack."

Tooth and Aster sighed along with the troubles teen. Neither of them had quite gotten past the little story the villagers had served them back at the town square. Tooth couldn’t begin to imagine what it must have been like for Jamie.

What is was like to discover that the people you had lived among and trusted in all your life, had been sacrificing humans for centuries and probably expected you to follow in their footsteps when the time came.

"It explained a lot of things," Jamie continued quietly and looked straight ahead on the road, "the disappearances, why no one ever made search parties, the Overland cabin ... I’d just always thought it was something that happened in the old days, like witch burnings and werewolf hunts. I ... I had never guessed that they ..."

They stayed quit for a couple of minutes, each of them processing what they had heard or seen. Tried to understand the dimensions of this place and the ounces of blood that had been spilled in the woods.

Jamie stopped the car just before the forest in the shelter of two large trees and turned off all the lights. Securing that they couldn’t be seen from a distance.

He locked all the doors as a precaution, despite the obvious fact that the pickup no longer had a windshield and turned to the others in the back seat with an open expression.

"What now?"

Tooth ransacked herself of places they could go, a safe place where they could hold out until they knew how to deal with the situation. Aster, on the other hand wanted some more information.

"Before we do more, I need to know what’s happening to Jack."

Jamie looked skittish, but then started to rummaging through his bag for his scrapbook. He flipped a few pages in the dark and ignored the cold wind that blew in from the missing windshield.

He bit his lip and decided that it was time for him to provide them with everything he knew.

"Listen ... all I have is what the stories tells and the little I have found here and there. Half of it is nonsense and other ... I don't know. But what I think has happened is ... Jack has become a changeling."

That meant absolutely nothing to neither Aster and Tooth and they just stared at him. Jamie rolled his eyes by their ignorance.

"A _changeling,_ ” he repeated like some lecture, “a child or youngster stolen by a fairy. In some stories, it is a phenomenon where the fairy steals a child and leaves its own offspring in return, but in other stories, a changeling is the name of the half-fairy race that sees the light of day after a human have undergone a transformation in the realm of fairies."

Aster looked down at Jack, "I think we can all be sure that this is our Jack. Not a fairy kid."

"I think so too," Jamie replied, "if Jack had been replaced with a fairy-child, it wouldn’t have revealed itself by showing its real form like this. I think we can all agree that we’re dealing with the second changeling theory here. But there’s not much about changelings besides ... it’s just….the stories focus more on the grief the fairies inflicts the humans after the kidnap and the moral of not dealing or making deals with fairies. Most stories tells you how important it is not to fight the fair folk, not many tells how to deal with a changeling other than leaving it behind and leave the land. Of course, in some of the legends the fairies steals a child and leaves something called a _‘fetch’_ in its place, but it's just random junk stacked together with magic to act and look like the child. Making sure that no one’s going looking for the child. It’s just a mindless thing that has all the child’s memories, thoughts, and appearance, but it gives itself away quickly due to bad behavior. It’s not in its nature to know right from wrong, since it has no soul, so – "

"How do we fix him," Aster interrupted to keep Jamie on track. Tooth felt a lump gather in her guts. At this point she had gradually come to the terrible, but honest conclusion that there wasn’t any way to save Jack. But obviously, Aster still had hope.

Jamie scratched his neck in concentration, trying to remember something useful.

"There was a book, but it was very vague," he began uncertainly, trying to remember it all, "there was a chapter which dealt with supernatural creature’s types of nourishment and something about the fair folk hunting people for their life force, but it was in latin and I’m wasn’t entirely sure my translation was grammatic correct, but - "

”What?” Aster pressed.

Jamie glanced down on Jack shortly, "okay, try this – a human becomes a changeling when they’re claimed by a fairy, right? They become a kind of half-fairy and get some of the same power, I think. So, if I understand right, they can live as fairies and be magical and immortal, and all that as long as they live in the fairy’s ... well, realm? Proximity? Something. But maybe… if they are removed from the fairy and its magic – if a changeling is stolen back from the fairy and brought outside its range ... then it ought to be more human again. How much I don’t know, but if I have to guess, I’ll say that if you steal a changeling, then you’ll be forced to be its source of life for the rest of your life. As you can probably guess that never happens in the stories. "

Both Aster and Tooth had gotten a hopeful glance in their eyes and Jamie hurried to raise his hands, "wait, wait, I don’t even know if the chapter had something to do with fairies, it could have been anything, I’m just guessing and gathering something meaning out of the things I know –"

"But what _do_ ya know then?" Aster sneered, getting rather frustrated with Jamie’s dubious knowledge, "if you can save someone by stealing them back from a fairy, then why is Jack only getting worse? He was himself when I found him, and now ..."

Tooth bit her lip, "maybe it's because you didn’t stole him back."

Both Aster and Jamie turned to her and she looked gently down on Jack who slept quietly.

"I mean, you brought him home, Aster, but you did not steal him, so to speak. You ..."

She remembered Aster's cold treatment of Jack, back when they’d arrived back to the cabin after Jack's disappearance. The same seemed to had gone through the head of Aster, as a look of guilt came across his face.

"Then," Aster began quietly and protectively laid a hand over Jack's shoulder, "then I just need to claim him, right? Make it clear that I have stolen him back?"

He turned to Jamie, "how?"

"How?" Jamie repeated surprised and flipped through his book without coming up with something. Taken aback by Aster’s question and looked utterly lost. He looked up with a look of disturbance, "I don’t know? I don’t know how to steal people back. Do you!?"

"Maybe you just need to simply say it?" Tooth suggested uncertain, "like in _the Swan princess_ , make a pledge to the whole world?"

"A true love kiss?" Jamie contributed without really sounding like he believed it. They were all more or less back to scratch. How do you take a human back?

Aster looked down on Jack, who had gone out cold again. He considered his options when Jamie grimaced.

"What?"

"It just,” Jamie began uneasy, “... if the legend of the first Overland changeling is true. That Nightlight Overland got his powers from the fairy queen of Northern Ireland ... then Jack have always been a changeling, Aster. It has always been in his blood. He has never been human ...

A rustling outside the car got them all to turn heads with a jerk and they kept silent with detained breaths. A bird took off from the bush next to the car and they all sighed in relief.

Jamie started the car again with slightly trembling hands and forced his frozen fingers to grip the steering wheel. His gloves squeaked dryly and he looked at them in the rearview mirror.

"Where do you wanna go?"

Tooth seemed dubious, not sure where it would be safe enough for them to stay anymore. Aster suddenly looked up as he got an idea.

"Drive back to the Overland cabin. Take the forest road.

-

Jamie drove them through the forest road with the headlights switched off. The fog lights and car lights could send the fairies on the run, but would also let them know where their exact position.

Better to keep a low profile until they had reached the cabin. Jamie had feared he would have to drive in crawl speed, to avoid crashing in the dark, but the clouds had miraculously disappeared and revealed the starry night sky, where the moon shone down on them with its pale light.

The moonlight and the white snow combined lighted the woods like something from a dream and made the night easy to be traveled in, if not supernatural to the mortal eye.

The moon's pale light made the trees shade appear like long lines on the white snow and seemed to transform the forest into a prison, with its long bars and branches whose shadows shaped bony fingers, reaching for them with ominous intentions.

Tooth and Jamie shivered partly out of discomfort and cold, while Aster seemed uplifted in line with their progress towards the cabin. His hands massaged Jack’s shoulders and the cold teen slept quietly as an infant in his lap.

Tooth smiled slightly by the sight. She hadn’t seen Jack so peaceful for nearly two days.

The prospects of saving him from the strange curse seemed even promising to her now. She had no doubts that Aster would do anything in his power to change Jack back to normal and if anyone could do it, it was Aster.

She hugged North’s ring in her pocket and tightened her grip, as Aster suddenly told Jamie to stop and jumped out of the car. Tooth was just about to shout after him, but then remembered they couldn’t attract any attention and contained herself.

She grabbed Jamie's shoulder instead, "what's he doing!?"

Jamie seemed equally confused, but then leaned forward when he saw Aster run towards a large dark excrescence of roots and plants along the roadside.

Aster pulled several of the long roots and dark branches covering the excrescence aside and Jamie blinked in surprise when a car door appeared between the black growths.

Aster crept into the overgrown car and returned shortly after with something dragging behind in the snow. He reached the pickup shortly after, out of breath and working hard to drag the thing into the car after him.

Tooth took Jack and made space, curious to see what the commotion had been about and Aster showed them the weed-burner.

"We’ll need this one, mates," he said and sent the old Land Rover one last gaze before Jamie put the car back into movement. Aster turned his back on the car and made sure Jack was still asleep.

The forest might have taken his car from him, but it wouldn’t succeed in taking Jack from him. He nodded to himself.

He could do this. He had a plan.

They reached the cabin a few minutes later. Everyone shuddered collectively, besides Jack who just snuggled into Aster. Without light or smoke in the chimney, the cabin seemed both hostile and haunted.

It lived up perfectly to its name as the “cursed Overland cabin”. Jamie gulped loudly.

People had lived their entire lives in that cabin. Waiting to be sacrificed to the forest, with no hopes of escape or goodwill of their fellow villagers.

He looked down, ashamed to be a descendant and still a member of that village, who had committed and still committed the atrocities the cabin seemed to scream with its hushed atmosphere.

Tooth on her part, couldn’t believe she had slept in that cabin and felt safe. It seemed like an eternity ago. How could things have gone so wrong?

They parked the pickup on the east side of the cabin and tried to camouflage it with a few tarpaulins from the shed and threw as much snow as they could on top of it.

It wasn’t perhaps the best camouflage they could have made for a car of this size, but at least it was no longer visible as a sign bent in neo with the words " **we’re in the cabin!** "

Both Tooth and Jamie was curious to know why Aster had chosen this exact place as their hideout, but remained silent while his guided them into the cabin.

He handed the weed-burner to Tooth, while he and Jamie carried Jack and he led them to the blank floor in the living room, where the ice had covered all the boards with several centimeters.

Jamie grunted slightly under the weight as Jack was handed over to him and watched as Aster unpacked the weed-burner and unfolded all its hoses and wires from one another.

He dragged the large cylinder after him and the two wheels crunched the ice under its heavy weight. Aster stopped when the edge of the icy carpet appeared and started the weed-burner.

It had originally been North's idea to bring it to their hunting of Jack’s attacker. Use it to melt the snow and find clues on the ground if necessary.

Aster had almost forgotten about it after they had been forced to give up the Land Rover in the forest, but when his thoughts had fallen on the hatch in the cabin and the problem with the ice, he had silently wished he had a flamethrower.

The childish wish-thinking had unconsciously led him onto the memory of the weed-burner abandoned in the car and a plan had started to form in his head.

Tooth brightened up when she understood and helped as he began to melt the ice around the corner of the carpet. The ice soon turned into water and some of the carpet appeared.

Tooth took over the weed-burner as the work progressed and Aster grabbed the first free corner of the carpet. It took him five attempts to get it free, but on the fifth attempt the ice cracked and fell off in large pieces, as the carpet was lifted upwards.

Aster wiped the sweat from his brow as the hatch appeared and Jamie stepped curiously closer.

"Wow, a hatch, really?"

"We can hide down there until we know how we make Jack normal again," Aster panted and sat up. Threw the wet carpet aside.

"The question is just whether there's light down there…"

There was only one way to find out and Tooth gave the hatch’s rusty padlock a kick with her boot. The padlock went off as easy as nothing and Aster took hold of the handle.

An acrid smell of musty furniture and moisture streamed out of the open hatch and some cobweb went along, as Aster tilted the hatch all the way. The black abyss returned their gaze and Aster prepared to descend.

He looked gravely at them with a hand on the hatch side, "if I don’t answer or it comes to battle down there, take Jack and drive as far as ya can. Just keep on driving. I mean it."

If Jamie had had the heart to tell him, he would have informed Aster that the car was only left on a third tank and that they wouldn’t get far, car or not. But as already said, he didn’t have the heart to tell him and just nodded in response.

Aster delved into the darkness and began rummaging as he went down a set of stairs, if the sound was anything to judge by and went deeper into a cellar, whose floor seemed to have a few millimeters of water, since his boots splashed around for some time.

Jamie and Tooth shared an alarmed glance, when all sounds suddenly stopped and all sounds seemed to have disappeared. They waited as the silence stretched to the unpleasant. Wondering if they dared to call for him or not.

It startled them both, as the sound of a large machine suddenly came to life with a hum and light filled the basement. Jamie and Tooth had been in the dark for so long that their eyes began to water by the sudden lighting and they blinked in discomfort as Aster looked up at them from the bottom of the stairs.

"There’s an emergency generator down here, mates! Full tank and more!" he shouted with a grin and waved two large floodlights on separate tripod, "we have light!"

Tooth uttered a sound of joyous amazement and even Jamie looked down with a broad smile by the prospect of a secure base. They crept down quickly after Aster and Tooth descended as the last, secured that the carpet was fairly on top of the hatch again and locked the hatch.

If the fairies came back to the cabin they just had to hope that they would believe the cabin to be empty, without investigating further. To push a table or couch over the hatch to hide it better, would be a disservice if they needed to escape from the basement quickly.

The wet carpet would have to do.

Tooth reached the end of the small steep staircase of old worm-eaten wood and looked around.

It was a simple cemented cellar with no windows or other exit than the stairs up to the hatch and it appeared to have been used as storage for old furniture and cargo nobody knew what to do with, or had the will to throw too far away.

A large rusty beast of an emergency generator took up almost the entire third part of the basement and stood side by side with two old-fashioned wood-burning stoves, whose function had gone out of service, after the cabin had been modernized with radiators and inlaid heating elements.

Rings emerged in the millimeter-deep water that covered the cement floor under Tooth's winter boots and the crisp splashing filled the basement with a slight noise in step with Jamie, who was worming his way over to one of the old couches and laid Jack on the damp couch cushions.

Everything in the basement seemed to be contaminated by the moisture and it surprised Tooth that it hadn’t spread to the rest of the cabin above them. She quickly raised a hand to shield her face and squinted as Aster turned one of the large floodlight in her direction.

He turned the lamp the last turn to make it point toward the other end of the basement instead. Tooth watched his work and found his location of the two floodlight to be the most functional.

Half of the basement was still laid in dark, but the shadows were narrow and the light that illuminated most of the basement would be too strong for any fairy to overcome.

Tooth pulled the weed-burner after her as she moved to the corner where Jamie had placed Jack and was trying to clear a little space for them to rest. Making a space where they could sit on the different surfaces and chairs, without fearing placing their buts on a rat nest or basket with old pincushions.

"There should be enough fuel here that we can hide ourselves for a few days," Jamie noted and nodded his head toward a row of rusting, but full jerrycans, next to the wood-burning stoves.

Tooth nodded as she took a seat, thought to herself that they should make some molotovcocktails now they were at it.

"Thank you, Jamie."

Jamie looked up and frowned confused, "for what? Nearly getting Jack killed by my mother and chased out into the woods? Keeping secrets from you and holding back information that could have saved you from this?"

He sounded bitter, if not ashamed of himself as he looked down and Tooth lifted his chin tenderly to maintain eye contact.

"For saving our lives. If it hadn’t been for you, Aster and I would be two puddles of blood above us right now. Or two cold corps lying on the frozen grounds back on the village. We owe you our lives, Jamie Bennet."

Jamie's face changed in a series of different emotions and expressions, creating lines of self-hatred, but also hope glide across his features.

It was obvious that he wanted to believe that he had done right, more than wrong, but it was an inner struggle that would take some time for him to get through.

He offered Tooth a little crooked smile to lesser her worries and make it easier for her. Personally, he would had preferred that she'd hated him just as he did, rather than to forgiving him so easily.

But as said, he wouldn’t cause her any more harm. If accepting her forgiveness would make this nightmare easier for her, he would gratifying accept it.

 _"Bloody hell,"_ Aster cursed as he bumped into something in the shadier part of the basement. It crashed down from a rack hidden behind an old set of stacked dining chairs and something fell down on the tabletop.

Aster had no time to clean up the stacked objects, except from the tables and chairs blocking his way, making him ignore it and continue working.

Tooth and Jamie had been watching him, alarmed by his swearing, but now that it was clear there was no danger, they returned to their starring at each other.

Jamie awkwardly patted Tooth on the shoulder, not quite sure what to do with himself and just wanted the moment to pass as fast as possible.

”No big deal…”

Back at the other end of the cellar, Aster had found a fuse box and threw the fuses on the floor he didn’t need before he slammed the cover and looked up at the planks above them.

"The only part of the cabin there should be lit up now, is the basement. We should be secure now and have more than a few days of surviving before the help arrives."

"What about food and water?" Tooth asked quickly. Hated to be the one that ruined their bubble of security, but someone would have to bring it up sooner or later if they had to be here for a long time.

Aster pointed toward a large stack of boxes and a small sink Tooth hadn’t noticed before.

"There’re cans of different stuff in all the boxes and water in the tap, I’ve checked whether it’s drinkable and it is. Some of the cans can have several years left before expiring. Guess it must have been Jack's parents or someone before ‘em that thought of storing ‘em down here."

He splashed across the open floor and began to pull a table out from behind the staircase with a grunt.

"Who has left these, I have no idea, but I think it must have been someone further back in time. Some of this stuff is bloody old, mate."

Tooth moved to him and began to inspect the many long knives and scythes that laid stacked on the table. Several of them had rusted beyond recognition, but several had been carefully wrapped in old leather covers and survived the water.

The many harvesting tools and plow-teeth shone dull in the glow of the floodlights and the blades was cold to the touch.

"Iron," she murmured quietly and Aster ran a hand across the handle on one of the bigger scythes.

"We should have gone down here when ya found the hatch back then. I shouldn’t had stopped ya, I’m sorry, Tooth. You were right."

She just sent him a raised eyebrow return, "do you know how long I've waited to hear you say that?"

They looked at each other for a long serious moment before both collapsed in giggles.

Jamie glanced their way and felt a small pang of envy. Despite all the hardship and horror that had surpassed them, they still had the courage to continued and could take little moments like these, knowing that they were still alive.

Still had each other.

After Jamie had listened to the elders meeting in the pub and left in horror, he had tried to gather his friends. Gather them in order to assemble some kind of rescue team and drive to the cabin and save Jack and the others.

But whenever Jamie than turned, doors were slammed in his face. Even Cupcake, who he had thought to be the toughest of them all, had cut the connection when he had tried to explain her the situation over the phone.

None of them had wanted to help him. None of them had wanted to interfere and prevent the massacre that was bound to start.

Neither Cupcake, Pippa, Claude, Caleb, or Monty had wanted to help him. Jamie had always known deep down that his friends had believed in fairies, though they would never admit it openly.

But he’d never imagined that their fears would have been able to prevent them from doing the right thing.

Jamie had never felt so alone as when he’d got into his pickup and set course towards the Overland cabin. Utterly lost and without a friend at his side. Friendless and only with disgust left for his mother that had led the word at the meeting in the pub, he’d started the car and put the village behind him.

The place he was born and raised, but could no longer recognize.

Jamie glanced down on Jack and wondered if all this had been worth it in the end. What if they couldn’t safe Jack? What if saving him still meant death for all of them? Then what? Was Jack even still Jack?

As in response to his troubled questions, Jack's brown and blue eyes opened and fixed themselves on Jamie.

"Hey ..." Jack whispered almost without voice and Jamie edged down next to him and pulled his feet up from the wet floor. Mustered a smile for Jack's sake.

"Hey, Jack. How are you feeling?"

Jack blinked owlish, as if had to remember how he felt and breathed heavily as if he had difficulty in breathing the moist air. Jamie didn’t like the sound and felt goosebumps run down his neck, but hid it from Jack.

Felt he owed Jack that little, after all he had been through. It was odd for Jamie to see Jack like this, not only because of the entire color transformation, but his way of holding himself as well.

When he had first met Jack back at the gas-station, Jack had seemed so confident and steady, like a guy you could tell your deepest darkest secret and he would keep them to his death.

His calm laid-back personality had attracted Jamie in a way he couldn’t quite describe, but if he were to get close to anything, he’d say it had something to do with trust and familiarity.

Jamie had never had other siblings than Sophie, but always wanted an older brother.

And if that hadn’t been enough to admire the guy, Jack had given him something Jamie hadn’t been meet with in a long time. The understanding of loss.

Seeing Jack in this state made Jamie afraid, but most of all angry. The forest had taken a lot from Jamie, his sister, his mother, his freedom to leave the village ... but by now it almost felt like the end of a long series of losses having to watch Jack slowly dwindle and become something the forest had determined.

Jack quietly kept an eye on Jamie.

Noticed the small wrinkles of anger and powerlessness that had formed in his corner of his mouth and eyes. In his groggy state, Jack felt the need to soothe him in some way and said the first and best his foggy mind could come up with.

"I saw your sister in the woods."

Jamie froze as if Jack had slapped him with something and sat silently as a statue for a while. Jack watching him patiently, waiting for a response and had almost fallen asleep again when Jamie low voice could be heard once again.

"Was she ..." Jamie choked with tears stinging in his eyes and fought to get a hold of himself and continued, “did she seem happy?”

Jack thought back on those few fragments he remembered and tried to hold on to them in a usable order, before they disappeared between his fingers like water again.

"She was playing with my sister. She was laughing."

Jamie snorted sharply and wiped his eyes with his jacket sleeve. He was too lost to speak clearly and his voice sounded husky, "my mother always said that fairies ate the kids, but I always clung to the stories where the fairies kept the human children as if they had been their own, or at least kept them around."

Jamie's eyes were shining with tears and he struggled to hold back the river, "i'm sorry, Jack. I'm so sorry for all this ..."

Jack felt the dizziness return, but he didn’t want to sleep anymore. All his senses swam and became useless, but he fought with the heavy eyelids and pull from the darkness. He didn’t want to dream again, not yet.

The present was more important than the world beyond the veil. For an instance… why was this guy so upset? And who was he again?

The answer was right there lying on Jack's tongue, but continued to slip his mind and became increasingly blurred. Jack's eyes tuned from the human to his surroundings and he frowned.

He didn’t recognize any of it and it nagged at him that he knew the names of these humans, but couldn’t remember their names, or his relation to them.

Jack forced his body to obey him and fought to regain control. By doing so his last drops of magic awakened and Jack froze as his nostrils suddenly extended. He turned his head slowly as a tear fell from Jamie's cheek.

Jamie had buried his face in his hands and didn’t notice the almost starved look Jack sent him. Jack inhaled Jamie’s smell ... no, scent ... no ...

Jack closed his eyes and tried to twist his mind around the unknown sensation and understand what he was picking up from the human being at his side.

 _Aura_ , he finally realized, as the unknown depths of his changeling consciousness started to return to the surface. He filled his lungs with the intoxicating smell of human sorrow and thrived in it.

It flowed from the human teen like a river of clear cold smoke and coated Jack's tongue as the fountain of life.

Jack drank from the human’s profound emotion, like a thirsty man and felt a soothing feeling spread through his body. There was a power in that feeling and it filled Jack with nutrient, sustained his weakened body with new strength and eased some of the pain.

The connection was brutally broken when one of the other humans called the sad one to him, in order to help with some boxes and Jack sighed painfully as the source of his sustenance left his side and moved towards the other end of the basement.

Out of his weak reach.

Jack stared after him. Tried to focus, but soon felt the tiredness wash over him again as the warm tides. Nourishment had relieved some of the veil before his eyes, but his weakened body needed more if he wanted to rise again.

He sank heavy down between the damp blankets and tried to find something to hold on to, tried to stay awake, but soon lost as the dreams of winter and silver wings took him again.

As the memory of an old beloved melody, he caught the sound of a voice and sighed quietly, "I can hear mom, Jill."

Tooth looked up from her work. She had started a small supply of molotovcocktails two tables from Jack and kept an eye on him in case he woke up. She placed the tenth bottle on the table beside her and frowned.

Jack himself appeared to be asleep again, looking at ease like a child, but his last words had given Tooth more than just the creeps.

He had been addressing his mother and sister. But why...?

Tooth suddenly stopped as the sound of a small voice reached her. There was a sound like someone was talking somewhere. A woman judging by the sound.

Tooth turned around, but the splashes from her boots and Aster and Jamie’s work with the furniture in the other end of the cellar, drowned out the sound completely.

“Stop a second,” she asked quietly and the two guys stopped. Aster put down the table they had been moving again with a frown, "what now?"

Tooth just shushed him and quietly moved towards the sound, then stopped when she lost direction again. She held a finger up as Aster was about to speak again and moved towards one of the floodlights now that the sound returned with a little laugh from the woman… or was it a man now?

"Do you hear that?" she asked with a whisper and moved toward the sound of the talkative pair. Jamie frowned, he had heard it to. Aster quietly followed them as Jamie and Tooth started walking toward the farthest end of the cellar.

They ended up making a ring around the same stack of tables and chairs Aster had bumped into earlier, when he had place one of the floodlights.

Tooth raised one of the flashlights she had kept in her belt and lit the group of furniture. A box of plates, stacked chairs, a lantern and old machine parts appeared in the dark. All of it were old and from another time, but what caught everyone's attention was a video camera.

It looked surprisingly new. Outdated model, but compared to the rest of the stuff; brand new.

“What is it doing down here?” Tooth asked puzzled and Aster just shrugged. No idea.

An overturned tripod laid beside it and they silently concluded that the camera had been resting on it for some time, until Aster had come across into it in the dark. Tooth hesitant lifted the dusty video camera and looked it over.

The fall had broken the camera lens, but turned it on as well. Tooth opened the small deployable side screen and watched its playing content.

They all looked down at it, deeply confused and deeply curious.

A woman waved to them from the screen and blew them a kiss. Half of the screen had turned green due to a previous hit, but most of it was watchable. Despite the poor quality, it was obvious that she had been a beautiful woman in the beginning of her early thirties.

Long chestnut hair framed her smiling face and she laughed with clear brown eyes, telling the cameraman to stop bugging her. The baby in her arms was too small to recognize the camera or understand what was happening, but the woman took the little one's hand nevertheless and waved to the camera with it.

_“Say hi to Daddy, Jill. Hey!”_

The man behind the video camera turned it around to become part of the film and smiled widely to them as he blew his dark hair out of his eyes. The sound of a small boy made him turn the camera around again and he focused it on a small boy with the same eyes and hair as the woman.

_”Hey, Jack! Happy birthday! Tell the camera how old you are?”_

The little boy with no front teeth showed the camera ten fingers and smiled broadly when his parents cheered in glee.

Jamie turned precariously to the others, “should we show this to –”

“What is it doing down here?” Tooth whispered again, deeply disturbed, “I thought the police ripped this place for evidence. Why would they leave something like this behind?”

Jamie had a pretty likely idea why, “it must have been the local officer. He’d probably just cleaned this place after their disappearance, made the necessary paperwork and hid their stuff down here. I’ve seen the blueprints of this cabin back at the local library. There’s no cellar on it.”

Aster stared down at the camera, noticed the date in the corner and without a sound he pressed a camera button, making the film go to fast forward.

A quick montage of a birthday pass quickly before their eyes. A birthday cake with ten candles, a stack of packages in colorful gift wrapping, Jack showing off his new suitcase filled with the things he was going to need for summer camp.

Tooth brought the film back to normal speed when the scenery changed to Jack's mother filming in front of a packed car. It was summer.

 _"Hey, Jack! You asked if we could document our summer vacation, so you wouldn't get to miss anything while you’re on summer camp and since Jill loved the idea,_ ," she filmed the sleeping baby in the carrycot in the back seat, _"I'll make sure that you won't miss anything, hon."_

The three teens quietly watched as family Overland began their journey to certain death, lured to a holiday cabin by a village who needed them for an ancient blood sacrifice.

Tooth felt nauseous just watching and witnessing the smiling faces and small moments of simple joys between family members, knowing that it wouldn’t stay like this for long.

Aster’s eyes darted to the date of the recording again and felt dreadful. It was the day of their disappearance.

A new entry in the series of days of playing in the garden and walks in the woods, began like the others, with Mrs. Overland making breakfast for her husband and daughter. Greeting Jack by turning on the camera and voiced what they had planned for the day.

Mr. Overland made a joke at the expense of the villagers and they laughed together while baby Jill gobbled from her baby-seat.

Aster caught the sight of the particular seat in the other end of the cellar. Even from here, he could tell that the pink baby-seat was missing a leg.

The film jumped to the sight of Mrs. Overland who swung with Jill on the tire swing Mr. Overland had hung up outside the house and they drank the lemonade that had been made earlier in the sunshine.

Waving to the camera that had been placed on the tripod.

There was a long pause where the camera had been turned off and with a sudden shock, the video camera was turned on again. It showed a second of blurred mess before it landed on the floor and became still.

A number of loud noises like those of a wounded animal shot out of the camera in hard pushes and turned into a long yelp of a man in pain. A foot hit the camera again and they caught a short a glimpse of Jack's father.

The man came back into view when he landed hard on the floor in front of the toppled camera, writhing in deep pain as he pressed his hands to his right eye, where black slime ran out between his fingers and bleeding side.

He began to tear the bandage around his head like a madman with loud groans, his cries began to switch between human weeping and more…animalistic snarls. He groaned in pain as the last lair let go of the eye and rose to his shaking knees.

They could only see his knees now, but the sounds continued. The man wept like a child, but despite the cutting volume of his screams, they had all noticed the sound of muttering and recognized the whispered just beneath.

They grew steadily in strength and as the man began tearing himself until he bled, the sound of the shadows grew louder and mingled with the sound of nails scratching against the glass panes.

Aster felt like he was going to throw up when the man collapsed in front of the camera again. Mr. Overland opened his mouth to the almost painful in a silent scream, making his jaw pop, while long black vein spread under his skin.

He began to pull his own black hair out with uptight fingers and tried scratching the black out of his scalp. Black liquid had slowly begun to escape through his torn skin and the white blinking eye he had covered earlier, began to glow like a little cold light.

Black shadows began to approach the man as black mist and the first hands reached out to him from the shadows.

None of them wanted to watch the rest and turned fast forward. For a few long minutes, nothing happened and they focused on the place where Jack's father had been before the shadows took him and Tooth almost missed it, when Jack's mother ran past the camera fell over it.

The woman groaned outside the camera angle and it shook when she picked it up and looked down into it, with a face that had seen too much. She stopped her inspection of the camera and quickly turned towards what might be the nearest window, with labored breath.

They all recognized the sounds of the shadows that had returned, although Tooth felt like the sound had become more lifelike and less like it came from a camera microphone now. She ignored it and lifted the camera closer to her face.

The film shook and jumped as the camera was turned towards the floor and Mrs. Overland carried it with her under the arm. They got a brief glimpse of the hatch to the basement when she slipped down and closed it behind her.

The camera's night mode took over in the dark and everything turned green.

The sound of whispering and muttering rose to an almost unbearable level and the camera was slowly reversed, making it filming Mrs. Overland, who looked at them with stinging breath and trembling lips.

The baby in her arm was pressed tightly against her chest, as she kissed the baby's head and turned to the camera with tears in her eyes.

_"Jack ... if you’re watching this, it means I'm dead ... we…"_

They watched as she pressed the child against her again and sniffled quietly, "mom and dad loves you so much, honey. Little Jill, our little Flee, loves you more than anything else. Never doubt that." 

She straightened the camera screen in order to level the child and have baby Jill joining the picture. The baby's eyes stared at them with an almost unnatural intensity and the woman smiled bravely.

Tooth felt her heart drop as two shining eyes opened in the darkness behind the woman. Mrs. Overland froze in her sitting position on the floor and turned around slowly. Her voice shaking with dreadful uncertainty, _”honey, is that –?”_

Jamie lost his breath as he watched Mrs. Overland getting dragged into the darkness by the monster, that had once been her loving husband. The camera hit the floor and focused on Jill, while the sound of Mrs. Overland's screams filled their ears and ended up in a sickening crack that brought all sounds to a stop.

Aster had turned away with a hand on the bridge of his nose and Tooth turned around to go to Jack. Didn’t want to see more.

Only Jamie witnessed as the shadows crept toward the baby. His eyes widened in horror as the baby suddenly hissed at the shade and jumped to all fours, crawled up the wall and out of the camera's view with a snarl.

Jamie was first brought out of his trance when Tooth's screams caused him to drop the camera in shock. It was broken in two pieces. He quickly forgot about the camera when he discovered what had caused Tooth's fears and forgot how to breath.

The forest prince, Pitch Black, stood tall and deadly in the dark part of the basement with a small army of shadows around him. Aster gasped as Pitch looked up from the sleeping Jack in his arms and the fairy caught the australian’s eyes.

He smirked with a set of sharp needle fangs.


	16. And miles to go before I sleep…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Christmas everyone!!!  
> this fic has come to an end, but fear not! the lovely SeramiNefera has inspired me to take up the writing of a sequel - something I'll start as soon as my exams have come to an end  
> hope you enjoy reading this as much as i did writing it  
> enjoy!!!!!
> 
> * * *

No one said a word.

Only lengthy fearful glances were exchanged with Pitch's victorious grin, as the echo of Tooth's screams dimmed.

Pitch's smile widened as the three human’s fear filled the basement with its heavy fragrance. As a darkling-fairy, fear was that he mainly got its nourishment from, like summer fairies got their energy from raw wrath, spring from sheer hope and winter from the deps of sorrow.

He regarded acknowledging the plain, but pure horror that spread in their dilated eyes and felt how he became stronger each second.

The truth was evident. He had won and they knew it.

The proof was lying unconscious, but safely in his arms and he broke eye contact with the harrowingly human beings to admire his prince. Jack had truly surrendered to winter.

The dull, but white locks framed the clean pure face as perfect and untouched as freshly fallen snow. The skin was almost transparent, revealing the blue crystal vein and eyes that lurked just beneath the heavy eyelids, framed by lengthy black lashes.

Jack’s dark eyebrows frowned as he reached a critical point in a dream and Pitch reassured him quietly with a black nail against his forehead. Made sure that the dream would turned into something more soothing and pleasurable.

Jack was, after all, where he belonged now. No need to fear.

Moving his focus to Jack and away from the humans had apparently been a mistake. The Australian had escaped his constraining spells as anger began to fill him and the human raised what looked like a very square gun at him.

Pitch snorted. It was obvious that the thing shot with iron, but even Pitch knew that it required concentration to make a clean hit with such an instrument. This man was obviously driven by his anger, got his strength from it.

But Pitch wouldn’t be his mother's son if he couldn’t see behind such bravura and sense the dark gulf the anger threatened to pull this man into. Aster’s anger flared up tenfold when Pitch’s grin grew wider.

If what drove this man was wrath, then Pitch would be more than willing to give it to him. He snapped his fingers and the little group of humans jumped by the sound, startled by the sudden disappearance of silence and only pure willpower kept the man from shooting in shock.

"Calm down, little human," Pitch crackled with a resounding voice, "wouldn’t wanna hit sweet Jack by accident, now would we?"

His laughter faded into a chuckle when one of his younger children stepped forward, summoned by the snap and more than willing to assist him.

"Let go of him or I ..." the rest of Aster's threats fell apart when his eyes drifted to the changeling who had sided besides Pitch. He smiled and laid a light hand on her head.

“Hehe. Look familiar, doesn’t she? Took me a while to perfect this little summer changeling: turning an infant into a growing child. Don't get yourself too worked up,” he added, as Aster was about to shot ham of out hateful spite, “hate only gives her more power. Hate is so delicate close to wrath, you know. You’re practical feeding her your soul if you continue like this.”

Tooth's eyes dilated in fearful recognition. She had never seen the six-year-old Jill Overland before in her life, but the girl's face and smile was so similar to Jack’s that there could be no doubt.

“Jill?”

Jill just smiled in sweet politeness. A light scent of apples and ripe strawberries hung from her long chestnut brown hair, where small fresh leaves and soft berries mingled with the many vines and leaves that seem to be part of her body.

A skirt of roots and bark hung from her body and revealed a pair of dirty bar legs. She giggled as sweet as summer showers and the laughter spread to the big eyes, where two golden globes very similar to that of the late summer harvest moon shone in the darkness.

“You’re all gonna die,” she giggled and the three humans stared at her in horror.

“Now, now, Jill” Pitch scolded her lightly, like a loving father who had to correct his naughty child in public without meaning a word, "don’t reveal the surprise for them all at once, right? It would ruin the hunt."

"We’re not your prey."

Pitch and Jill's eyes locked onto Jamie with the same swiftness as wipers and he regretted opening his mouth on the spot, but forced himself to meet their gaze. He wouldn’t be weak anymore. He wouldn’t surrender to the forest's power.

Never again.

"We’re not -"

"Silence," Pitch ordered and Jamie kept shut, as the many shadows suddenly encircled them and filled the dark corners of the basement. Tooth and Aster pulled him quickly in between them and flanked him with their weapons drawn.

Fearlings snapped out after them and the nightmare-men drew nearer with ominous whispers.

Tooth was ready to stab her sword into the nearest, when Pitch raised a hand and all the shadows came to halt. The three humans looked confused from him to his dark army, breaths shallow and fear oozing from their skin.

“I must say... this is quite exciting. Five little mortals have managed to overcome my army and powers for more than a night. I'm a little impressed, well,” he chuckled and acted as if he counted them, “ _three_ little humans managed.”

"You –” Aster snarled, but Pitch pointed warning to Jill, whose gaze had hooked itself to Aster like a rattlesnake. A wide smile had spread across her sweet face and Aster felt how the anger grew in him without his control.

His hands began to shake and all his muscles tighten like he was making ready for a fight. He recognized this condition from the times he had lost control of himself. The times in his past where he had lashed out after others just for address him, or getting too close to him.

Those were dark memories and his most shameful ones. Aster forced himself to breathe, focus and come back down to earth. He went through the breathing exercises he had learned from material art and forced himself to relax.

To get hold of his anger.

Jill pouted offended when he got control of his emotions and broke out of her spell. Pitch patted her shoulder, she had been close to gaining control over the human. Oh well.

They had time.

” _P-please_ ,” stammered Aster forced and felt the sweat that had gathered under the jacket, "let. Jack. Go."

”Hmm,” Pitch hummed in mocking consideration before his face tuned to an expression of utter boredom and indifference, “no.”

“He needs help,” Tooth tried and took an uncertain step forward, "stop his transformation and let us help him, we can cure him. We have hospitals, we have doctors who can fix him ... "

A choir a laughter had spread in the dark and even pitch seemed to be amused by her words.

"Stop his transformation? Surrendering him to humans and knives in a house of iron and light? I think not. Jack is nearly through his change and will become one of us. When his fully changed, he will become stronger than ever, more powerful than any of you humans can imagine and even lovelier than now.”

He cooed the last and send a possessive gaze to the sleeping teen resting in his arms. Aster’s anger flared up again like a fire, but Jill was there on the second and tried to catch on to him like a hook in a fish. He gasped and forced himself to keep it down.

Jill narrowed her yellow eyes, but didn’t let her attention leave him one second. Ever patient and waiting for his fist step into the path of wrath.

“You see, it’s all in the season,” Pitch continued, playing with Jack's white locks, "I have made many changelings of the Overland family over the years, but no one have ever had the change to take winter as their element before now."

Jamie felt a strange mixture of horror and involuntary fascination when eight changelings appeared out of the darkness behind the forest prince and moved to his side.

The mute water-changeling took grinning place alongside Jill, while two autumn changelings took the other side of Pitch. A woman with long bird claws and feathers instead of limbs, gazed sharply at them with big green eyes, intensity as an owl.

A young man, very similar to a tree in bloom, returned their gazes with deep knowledge shining from his hallow eyes and hummed as a squirrel ran across his calloused body.

An old woman with long billowing hair, as foggy and white as the wind that fluttered around her body, glared at them scornfully and clear rain dripped from her cloud-gray eyes.

A handsome man with flowers instead of hair and eyes, took affectionately her hand and the many flower petals that shaped his body flickered easy and aromatic in the wind she produced.

Their many eyes meet the three humans with witness of hidden secrets and the wisdom that came from having lived past a human lifetime.

All were they different in appearance and yet… Even without knowing their common inbred heritage that had kept them from diverge from the village common traits, there could be no doubt that they all had the same ancestry.

All had they traces of brown eyes and chestnut brown locks showing here and there. Every last one of them looked like Jack in so many ways and yet in many ways not. They were Overlands. They were all changelings.

They were all lost to humanity.

They swarmed around Pitch and stole small glances in Jack's direction with scattered smile and whispered in each other’s eras with broad grins. Aster had an unspeakable desire to shoot them all.

The way their eyes turned to Jack as if he was a piece of meat for them to devour, made all his nerves itchy for a fight, but it took all his will not to surrender to rage and be overwhelmed by the power Jill held over his emotions.

She followed all his movements like a hawk and he gritted his teeth in despair. Jamie himself struggling in the grip fear had taken in him and tried to break out of the prison Pitch had caught him and Tooth in.

Jamie knew from his studies that the fairies got their powers from the emotions humans provided them with and tried to muster an emotion no fairy was able to draw energy from.

Courage.

"That's not true," Jamie stuttered and felt fear grip his heart as Pitch raised an unimpressed eyebrow. Jamie wetted his lips and tried to find his voice without letting it crack. Tried to gain them some time.

"N-Nightlight. He was a winter changeling, it says so in the legend; _’a white-haired boy was brought forth from the fairy mistress's red robe and the two boys was switched’_ ,” Jamie recited fluent now that he was more sure of himself, "Nightlight was a winter-changeling, the Queen gave him the winter as his element and sent you out to live in his place. To create your own realm."

A grin had spread across Pitch grey face and he sighed in sweet melancholy, "my, my. Someone has some insight I see, then this must be yours I presume.”

Jamie hurried to catch the book, as Pitch threw it to him without a care. He chucked by the sweet memories of the books content.

“Oh, sweet childhood! All the fear and the panic. Everyone whispered and cowered from the sight of their neighbor's sudden breakdowns and slowly insanity. All the emotions and so many people to take sustenance from in the village. There was the wrath I found in the drunken cobbler. After to weeks of my magic, he lost himself to it and beat his family to death with a hammer. Such fear it evoked. Or what about the young clergyman's daughter, surrendered to the pure hope of love so easily. Jumped in the hay with a stable boy and became pregnant. She hung herself when he left her alone with the shame. Not to mention the village children ... "

He seems to grow in the darkness of the cellar and smother the light from the two floodlights. The fairies beside him grew and flourished as they fetched the power of his words and the three humans moved backwards.

"They feared the most. So innocent and frightened. Afraid of their own shadows and the imaginary monsters in the dark under their tiny beds. If you whispered enough sweet words into their little ears, the nightmares would come naturally. I didn’t even have to lift a finger for them to cower in the night. It was a time to remember, but it was only after Nightlight that they should come to understand real fear. Come to understand what happens when you challenge the forest. Challenge the fair folk. Challenge _**me**_."

"We didn’t challenge you," Tooth defended and tried to protect Jamie by placing herself in front of him," and neither did Jack. We were lured here against our will by the villagers. Jack doesn’t want to become a changeling, he did nothing to deserve this!"

A sinister laughing filled the cellar and bounced from wall to wall. Pitch dried his eye, deeply amused.

“I’m afraid that’s where you go wrong, little mortal.”

He laid a hand on Jack's cheek in something that could almost resemble tenderness and smiled gently, “surprising creatures, humans…when he first stepped into my territory I was going to kill him and be the curse even.”

The offhand remark almost sent Aster over the edge and Jill laughed sweetly, while Aster struggled to get keep himself in control. Pitch laughed by the sight and caressed Jack with a sadistic smirk. Knowing that it would just provoke Aster even more.

"I must say I have received a lot of different sacrifices during the years, but never have anyone offered themselves so _willingly_. Sweet, sweet Jack, I had almost forgot about my mother’s original plan with the Overlands, when this boy reminded me. Such a sweet boy, so innocent, so…delicious _untainted._ ”

Pitch licked Jack's cheek and the teen whimpered in his sleep.

Aster lost his cool and shot with a roar. The series of iron nails made sparks light against the cement walls and the changelings laughed and started to walk backwards along with their master.

Jill was ready to drown Aster in his own insane bloodlust, but Pitch called her to his side with a simple hand gesture. The girl made a disgruntled pout, but followed obediently and sent one last sullen look after Aster before she disappeared into the darkness.

Tooth grabbed Jamie and sprinted to stop the fairy's withdrawal, but Aster was fastest and jumped across two tables to grab the laughing Pitch.

“Pitch you shadow-sneaking ratbag! Come here!”

The prince of the forest simply cackled as he backed off into the darkness and his shining eyes and teeth was the last Aster saw, before his hands reach the shadow and slammed against the wall of the cellar.

“No! No, Jack! _NO!_ ”

“Aster!” Tooth shouted after him, but Aster had already run towards the stairs and broke through the hatch before she could reach him.

"Jamie, take the bag with the molotovcocktails and the two cans of petrol!"

Jamie nodded hectic and made salute before he could stop himself. Tooth jumped behind the stairs and grabbed as many knives and scythes she could carry and ran after Jamie up the stairs, while she in a hysterical whim of jest told herself her mother would be disappointed with her for running with knives.

-

Aster groaned.

His shoulder had taken a very hard fall when he had slipped on the ice up in the cabin's living room and it still rang in his right ear with an insistent deafening tune. But even if he had dislocated his shoulder and lost his hearing, he couldn’t have care less.

"Jack!"

The sharp cold winter had bid Aster welcome with its biting embrace and Aster forced his chattering teeth together. It was too late to run back for his jacket, gloves, and cap. The only thing Aster could think of was Jack.

Jack in the fairy's arms. Jack who was led into the darkness.

"Come back!" Aster yelled into the cold and the wind stole his words. The snow reached to his knees and had soaked his boots in seconds. Chilled him to the bone Instantly.

“Give him _back!”_

Aster’s words cut through the night this time and the strength of his own voice drove him forward towards the forest. Just the sight of the dark dense trees got the blood in his vein to boil with hatred.

The forest had taken his car. It had taken Sandy from him. North. And now Jack. It had taken a large part of his life. It had taken many things from him.

Too many things.

Aster tripped over a hidden root and fell as long he was in the white snow. He heard shouts behind him and Tooth and Jamie ran up to him. He registered half they were carrying stuff with them when they bent down to check if he was okay.

Tooth said something, but it was as if he had become deaf. All sounds seemed fuzzy to him.

He peered into the trees and tried to find the fairy's footsteps, something that could indicate a direction, a clue to where the fairy had taken Jack.

He found nothing. The snow was untouched all around him. Not a disorder, not a single footprint. Nothing.

Jamie shook his healthy shoulder, Aster pushed him lethargic from him, couldn't bring himself to focus on them. He had to find Jack. Didn’t they understand?

He had lost all sense of time when a shadow flickered somewhere in front of him. Aster lifted his head, stared at it, before realizing and crawled forward. He reached the black object and pulled it from the snow with trembling fingers.

It was a black winter jacket.

Jack's jacket.

He rubbed his fingers deep into the fabric and could sense the smell of Jack's cheap mint shampoo. To Aster it smelled like heaven in the midst of this cold hell. Another smell soon reached his nostrils and he felt a sticky feeling in the midst of the fabric.

Tooth gasped above him and Jamie took a step back. Aster’s fingers were stained with blood. The back of the jacket was soaked in dark blood.

Anger flared in him again and this time there was no summer-changeling to control him and force him to stop it. Pitch grinning face appeared before his eyes and turned his blood acid. An impulse told him he should do something about that fairy.

Something permanent.

He caught a glimpse of rust out of the corner of his eye and turned his head. Tooth and Jamie were talking somewhere above him, but all he had eyes for was the jerry can. There was a picture of a smiling oil droplet on it. It held a match.

 _Fire_ , he thought, _burn the whole forest down._

"Aster, we have to make a plan, we have to safe Jack! We gotta – "

"Give me that scythe," he interrupted flatly. Jamie stared precarious between them and Tooth exchanged a long stare with Aster, hesitated as if she was considering whether it was wise to entrust a weapon to him.

Finally, the scythe was placed in his outstretched hand and Aster used the shaft to get back on his feet.

The sound of ripped clothing echoed through the woods, as he tore the sleeve of Jacks jacket. Tooth and Jamie both watched him in silence, feeling slightly uncomfortable, while he tied the two sleeves around the scythes long curved blade and grabbed the rusty jerry can.

The smell of gasoline was almost sickening to Tooth, who had spent her time making molotovcocktails earlier and Aster ignored them as he soaked the blade and fabric in gasoline.

The lighter hissed and flared, it lit up their face for a second and the nearest trees turned red as the fire spread across the blade. Aster raised the scythe and felt the warmth as it burned like a hellfire.

“C’me on,” he barked and led them in the direction the jacket had lead.

Jamie and Tooth shared a brief glance before they both hurried to follow him. Tooth threw the two iron bars she had previously used as a sword and switched them out with two long plow blades as they walked.

Jamie unscrewed the top of his two jerry cans and secured the straps of the bag with Molotov cocktails on his shoulder.

As they walked futher into the woods with solid gear and faces of determination, Jamie could almost believe that this wasn’t a suicide mission.

Almost.

As a bizarre - if not macabre - trail of breadcrumbs, they soon came across Jack's windbreaker and followed the direction deeper into the darkness where his shoes and later socks appeared.

Jamie caught a glimpse of a fearling or two out of the corner of his eye, but they pulled back when he turned his head toward them and lit them with his headlamp. Tooth flanked Aster's right side, opposite Jamie and kept all the shadows at bay, with the two flashlights she had bound to her arms with duct-tape.

The rest of the shadow stayed out of the way and followed them from the shadows. Safe and far away from Aster's burning scythe.

Aster led them still as the angel of vengeance with his burning scythe and ignored the fearlings that snuck by them in the shadows. He stopped them again when he found Jack's scarf and Tooth groaned distraught when Jack’s signature hoodie appeared in front of them.

Someone had wittily hung it from a branch where they couldn't miss it and showed taunting the big bloody smudge that had soaked the entire hoodie's backside.

“Looks like a warning or a trap,” Jamie warned, but Aster took no notion of him.

“Do…do you think they…” Tooth began quietly, but couldn't bring herself to continue.

Aster shook his head and pulled the hoodie down from the branch, "if he wanted Jack dead he had done it by now. He wanted Jack alive. Jack's alive. His hoodie is still warmth."

A giggling echoed between the dark trunks and the three human beings made a closed ring. Tooth did a toss of the head and they all turned toward the direction. Silently and without leaving an imprint on the snow, Jill stepped forward as light as a dancer.

Her orange eyes sparkled with mischief and she offered them a smile as sweet as the berries hanging from her ears.

"Come to play?" she asked curiously with an undertone of naughtiness and rocked on her toes.

Aster stepped forward in front of Jamie and Tooth, and felt a certain satisfaction by seeing Jill eye his scythe with discomfort. She hid it well, but it was obvious that the light of the fire blinded her and the heat from the fire got her cheeks to blaze fever red.

"I have come to get Jack," he replied calm and collected. Tired of bullshitting around, but not quite ready to kill a little girl, just yet. It didn’t exactly help that she was Jack's sister either.

“You can’t have him,” she warned and made a threatening stand. Aster moved his scythe and made her step backwards easily. He took a step forward.

“I know you love him, Jill.”

She looked up at his words. Blinked attentively with the dark eyelashes that were so similar to Jack’s.

“Ya love him and ya tell yourself that he belongs with ya, mate. I get it,” he told her quietly, taking another step forward and lowered the burning scythe, “you’re his sister and you’re family. You’ve waited for him, for years. Knowing that he was out there and that he maybe one day would return to ya. Become yours.”

A mixed expression came over the small changeling’s face. A glimpse of sorrow and hurtful injustice surfaced and the small berries and summer flowers in her hair faded slowly in line with his words. 

Aster stepped closer and lowered the scythe completely, tried to show he wouldn't hurt her.

"And I know ya will fight to keep him with everything ya have. Ya know what is best for him and you know that he belongs with ya; body and soul. That ya can only be happy as long as ya’re together and that nobody should ever come between ya. You know what’s best for him, Jill. I know, Jill. I know better than anyone that ya feel - because I've been there myself."

Tooth stretched out a hand to keep Aster from going closer, but Jamie stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. Shook his head in warning.

Aster took no notice of them, he only had eyes for Jill.

"I used to think the same way, mate. I love Jack more than anything else and wanted us to stay together forever. Jack’s the only one I can be myself with and the only one that understands who I am. I would kill for Jack. Kill anyone who would try to take him from me and as much dared to look at him wrong. I would protect him from everything and everyone and make sure that nothing happened to him – and ya know what, Jill? That's why none of us can have Jack."

He went down on his knees in front of her to be at eye level and she stared at him with blurry eyes, confused and captivated by his words.

"Because that’s not love, Jill. That’s ownership. None of us can own Jack. Not you, not me. Neither blood or words can define where someone belonging and Jack’s his own, mate. He has his own feelings and his own idea of where his life should lead him to. If we force him to do as we want, then we’re no better than those we wanted to protect him from in the first place."

Jill's big eyes looked down. Grief and uncertainty caused her to bite her lip and she hugged herself, suddenly freezing in the cold winter night.

Aster kept an eye on her and sighed, "that's why I need ya help now, Jill. Jack became a changeling against his will and now he’s near death. If ya love your brother then you have to be a big girl and look beyond what you want for him, and understand what’s best for him. Help me get him back from Pitch and become human again."

At the sound of her prince's name, she turned her eyes back to Aster and she lifted one of her little hands. She stroked his cheek with an almost melancholy expression and sighed theatrically.

"Oh, Bunny. If only you knew my brother like we do ... "

The darkness behind her began to move and Aster rose rapidly as the large shade from the forest staggered out of the dark. Jill backed backward until she leaned against the monster's large burned arm and stroked it to calm the shadow.

Patted the huge nightmare-man the same way a child would sooth a loyal pet.

“ _Shhh_ , easy, daddy. Don’t let their fear get the best of you.”

Aster twisted his face in disgust, "you know what Pitch did to your father and still you side with him?"

She ignored his rude tone and continued her petting, “of course I know my daddy – and I think you know my friend here to.”

A smaller shadowy fearling stepped forward in the glow of Aster's scythe and Jamie gasped agonized. Sophie Bennet danced lightly to her mistress' side and the old tattered plastic wings hopped frantically from her back.

Jill took her hand and the two girls giggled in sweet unison, while Jamie dropped to his knees with his hands to his mouth.

"What have you done to her!?" he cried in despair and Jill just tilted head as if she didn’t understand his misery.

"Nothing she didn’t even asked me to, silly. Sophie said nobody wanted to play with her, that the other children wasn’t nice to her, because she wanted to be a fairy princess. That her brother never bothered to play anymore…"

"Stop it! It wasn’t like that! I didn’t, I-I,” Jamie stammered with bated tears and could barely look at his fearling sister, who waved to him with an impossible wide grin.

Jill smiled maliciously, "come and _play_ with us, Jamie. Come into the – _arg!_ "

The little summer-changeling had been quick enough to get out of the reach of Aster’s scythe, but not without two of her berry vines going up in flames.

Screaming and wailing she patted herself on the head to stop the fire and jumped up and down in anger, “kill, them! Kill those stupid humans! Kill them _now!!_ ”

The large shadow was more than eager to comply and flung himself at them with bared fangs, closely followed by Sophie and the large group of fearlings that had been waiting patient in the shadows.

Aster rushed to jump away from the claw the large shadow lashed out at him and moved quickly back to Tooth and Jamie to form a defense. Tooth swung her two swords against the nearest fearlings and Jamie threw a lid molotovcocktail with a shout.

Several of the fearlings withdrew from the light of Aster's scythe and Jamie’s fire, but several soon joined and attacked them from all sides. Jamie struggled to keep their right flank free with molotovcocktails, while Tooth moved back and forth with flashing knives and snapping light from the polaroid-camera around her neck.

Aster defended their front and kept the biggest shadow in check with his nail gun and tried to find an easy way out for them.

Jill hissed at them in fury and gave a brief order to Sophie, who ran back into the deep forest. Aster knew instinctively that she sought toward Pitch to warn him and he would have none of that.

He broke out of their secure formation and went after her. Tooth yelled after him and Jamie gasped as Aster sidestepped the large shadow’s claw, ran in front of it and jumped to planted his boot on top of its head.

He jumped off across the shadows broad back in a high arc and landed safely on his feet behind it.

It shortly occurred to him that his tai-chi sensei would have been awfully proud of him.

The monster tried grabbing him, but he was far faster than the big heavy monster and turn around before it had the chance to realize what had happened. He raised his gun and fired his nails in its bared neck.

The monster screamed in pain and sank to its knees before it collapsed with a howl, bleeding all over the snow. Aster stepped back as it went into a frenzy and lashed around in blind pain, tried blindly to remove the iron nail from its flesh with blunt claws. Only making it worse and the bleeding more lethal.

Aster gave it a kick in the back and planted his boot down on it to pin it firmly.

With a single swing, he cut his burning scythe into its spine and the monster howled to the moon in pain.

The fire quickly grabbed the flammable body and the shadow writhing on the ground as a living fireball before it finally lay still and was dissolved into black slime.

The other shadows retreated by the sight and Jill screamed in horror. Aster turned to her and she widened her eyes in horror. She took a step back, terrified and send the goo that had once been her father one last glance, before she turned around and ran.

Aster gave chase.

"Aster, wait!" Tooth shouted, but he had already disappeared into the darkness of the forest, only a faint yellow light revealed his direction. Jamie threw his molotovcocktails forward and grabbed her hand when the fearlings retreated with hisses and created an opening.

”Come on!”

They ran as fast as their heavy burden allowed them and soon tailed Aster as they followed his fire. Behind them they could hear the fearling pursue them and multiple shadows appeared on both sides of them.

Aster stopped and shouted in aggravation when three changelings stepped out in front of them, blocking the way. The old wind-changeling raised her hands and the humans stepped back as a storm started to rise.

Tooth grabbed Jamie to keep him on the ground, as the wind tried to divide them and howled all around them. Streams of wind encircled Aster and he realized she was trying to extinguish his flaming scythe and leave them in the dark.

Tooth came from the left and slid in front of him. Her swords left two long gashes across the old changeling’s chest and the old hag lost control of the wind with a surprised cry.

Tooth tried getting a second hit, but the changelings had already grabbed their fallen member and pulled her back to safety. The flower-petal covered changeling hissed furiously, but it was the two autumn-changeling who took up the challenge.

The two changelings grabbed one another and began to mumble in unison, digged their feet into the soil, where they made roots. Jamie gasped as the earth began to wave and squirm beneath them.

Large roots shot up from the ground in pace with the trees that started to bow in their direction, going for the three humans. Tooth and Aster was quick enough to dodge and duck under the roots, but Jamie had been less fortunate and was hoisted up by the leg.

His bag hit the ground beyond his reach and he lost his grip on the two jerrycans as the roots threw him into a net of branches.

”Jamie, I’m coming!” Aster yelled and threw himself through the living tangle of twisting roots and snapping branches. Tooth left Jamie’s rescue to Aster and ran towards the flock of changelings.

The two autumn-changelings continued their chanting and the young spring-changeling with the floral hair, left the elderly to rest against a trunk and leapt forward to protect the other two.

Tooth swung her sword against him and he dodged easily like a leaf in the wind. He sent her back in the snow with a side-kick and tried to get on top of her. Tooth rolled quickly to the side and stabbed after the root that had tried to capture her.

The spring-changeling saw his chance and grabbed both her hands, keeping her form swinging the two plow blades. Tooth gritted her teeth as they fought and pulled each other around to gain the upper hand.

Tooth tried to force one of her knives down and into his neck, but he ducked with a grunt and finally forced her hands up over her head with bared teeth.

Aster had finally reached Jamie by climbing a block of soil and began to chop the thick root that contained him. Jamie screamed at the roots to let go of him in convulsions, only to get caught by another one and hoisted further up.

Aster swung his scythe against the incoming branches that threatened to pierce right through him and knocked his foot against one of the toppled jerrycans. The missing lid had cause the can to empty its content across most of the ground and plenty of the roots had been soaked in gasoline.

That gave Aster an idea. He grabbed the half-empty jerry can and began to spread as much of the gasoline around him as possible. He evaded a tree that reached for him and threw the empty can behind him.

"Jamie!" he shouted, pointing at the ground, ”drop the lighter!”

Jamie, who was now almost enveloped in a network of small roots and branches, fumbled gasping and breathless into his pocket with bloodless hands, as the roots tightened around him. Cutting out the light and air.

His hand was almost locked against his thigh when he found the lighter and he groaned in pain as he struggled to ignite it.

Aster gasped as the lighter slipped out between Jamie’s fingers and the teens eyes widened as he followed the ignited lighters way down to the ground. It bounced off the ground once before everything went up in flames.

Tongues of fire ran across the roots, wild as hungry predators and spread like a plague faster than the roots could withdraw. The fire took hold despite the snow and released a thick white smoke, almost blinding Aster who ran forward to grab Jamie.

The teen had been released from his prison and fell screaming to the ground between the whipping branches and burning roots. Aster caught him before he could hit the ground and behind them the fire reached Jamie’s bag.

The total amount of molotovcocktail bottles and the last sealed jerrycan created a small explosion in the fire's center and sent everyone flying with its blazing shockwave. Tooth was hurled across the ground and away from the spring-changeling, who had gained the upper hand by now.

Aster and Jamie was sent forward in a large arch and landed a few meters from each other in the melted snow. The two autumn-changelings screamed as the explosion set them on fire and went squealing into the woods where they rolled in the snow to kill the flames.

Aster was the first human to get back up and he turned dazed to the sight of the fire they had kindled. The great sea of flames spread slowly, but solidly through the clusters of old trees and began to fester its way through the woods.

The changelings screamed and hissed painfully by the light and fled the scene as fast as they could. They left the old wind-changeling behind as she was too weak to follow. Aster could only watch as the fire grabbed her gray robes and ate up her long silver hair in seconds.

He found Jamie a few meters away from him and shook the teen to get him back to life, "wake up, mate! Now's not the time to take a nap!"

The teen rose slowly, but then fell back down.

"Ahhh, my rib," Jamie groaned and grasped his aching side. Aster frowned, guessed the guy had broken a bone or two. He knew the kid would hate him for it, but they had to move – broken bones or not.

"C’me on, mate, we gotta find Tooth. Ya can writhe in pain later."

Jamie screamed as Aster yanked him to his feet and forced him to lean on him for support. Aster looked around hastily to spot Tooth and started moving around the fire, careful not to get caught in it and fought not to choke on the gray smoke.

They moved through the thick waving land of mist and watched how the veil seemed to block out the light from the fire. Black shadows began to wander in and out of the smoke, now that the light was weakened and Aster raised the nail gun, he had been thoughtful enough to grab after the fall.

The scythe was nowhere to see.

One of the shadows hissed in pain when three iron nails pierced its torso and Aster fired around them blindly to get the enemies of their backs. More shadows flickered in and out of the smoke around them and Jamie struggled to stay on his feet. Keep quiet and don’t attract attention.

Apparently, Aster wasn’t much for the quiet game.

"Tooth! Tooth where are ya!?" he shouted desperately into the smoke and felt a moment of relief as a human cough emerged somewhere in front of them. Aster walked eagerly towards the sound and started to jog with Jamie in tow.

A slender contour emerged forthright and Aster reached out, "Tooth?"

Two claws shot forth from the smoke as the spring-changeling jumped them and grabbed Aster’s collar, ready to bury his sharp teeth in his face. A lightning of silver whizzed through the air and beheaded the changeling before he could do much.

Tooth appeared behind the falling body with bloody swords and hitching breath.

Neither of them had time to dwell on the situation for long. The fallen changeling had attached the fearling's attention and the many shadows began to attack. Tooth cut down the closest and began to lead them through a cleaved road, while Aster kept their back free with his nail gun.

Jamie struggled to keep up, trying to keep his little screams of pain on a minimum. Tooth led them round the fire and coughed sharply from the gradually thickening smoke. The whole forest seems buried in its blanket by now and they continued their new direction, now with the fire behind them.

More fearlings tailed them and the crowd behind them kept growing. Despite their efforts, they were soon surrounded again and Tooth swung her knives through the incoming shadows around them with wild war cries.

Aster followed suit with his gun and the three stood back to back to get the best defense.

Aster soon realized it was hopeless and tried to seek out an opening or weakness somewhere in the ring of shadows. His eyes darted from fearling to fearling, shooting around in blind and fought to get air in the increasing darkness.

His eyes caught the sight of blood and Tooth noticed his stare. She didn’t even try to cover the large bitemark in her neck and send him one last look, before she did something incredible stupid, but otherwise…brave.

Jamie, who had no other weapon than a flashlight, looked up in confusion, when Tooth placed her sword securely in his hands.

"Don’t hold back," was all she said before she ran. She ignored their warning cries and lifted her camera. The shadows screamed as she flashed them and they retreated in hissing clusters.

She flicked again and again, as fast as the camera-flash allowed and broke out of the circle. The furious shadows followed her and soon she had drawn more than half of the circle's fearlings along with her.

"Tooth, No!" Jamie shouted and made ready to try and save her, when her voice reached them.

“Don’t – save Jack! – I’ll find you!”

Aster shot the nearest fearling in the face and his eyes darted between her friend and the direction the changeling had taken last. He uttered a sound of utter frustration and pulled Jamie after him. Jamie protested, wanted to follow Tooth and help her, but Aster forced him ahead and bit back the tears.

Tooth smiled bitterly, seeing that they continued on without her and allowed her to do this. She ran as fast as she could and continued her flight through the forest. Caught out of the corner of her eyes, how the shadows were closing in on her.

Several jumped down from the trees around her and others tried to catch her from the low branches. She dodged with her heart beating in her throat and took picture after picture, to keep them off her back.

She screamed when the ground suddenly disappeared from under her and she began to roll down a snow-covered slope. She hit the bottom hard and struggled to stand up again and move on.

The camera was still hanging from her neck like a stone and she limped on, listening to the wild hissing and screaming from the shadows echoed behind her from higher ground.

A side-stitch began to form in her side and her breath became shallow as the exhaustion took over. She coughed and felt how the slime from the smoke stole the air from her lungs. Black blood came up with the next cough and she sobbed as she limped on, utterly lost and as good as broken.

She lost her jaw when a large dark brick wall appeared in front of her. She suddenly realized it was a house and threw herself against the old half-rotten door.

The house was nothing more than a ruin, but at this moment it was better than nothing and she slammed the door behind her and fell into the untouched snow that had fallen through the missing roof.

She half-crawled, half-huddled toward the nearest corner and leaned breathlessly against it.

She took the glove off with her teeth and lifted trembling her fingers to her collar. They became pasted by the contact with her skin and she drilled the nails into the spot where the changeling had taken a chunk of her neck.

Grimaced by the pain and strange texture of the wound's rim.

Humorless laughter escaped her bloody lips. She had taken the spring-changeling's life, but he had sealed here fate in return. Her laughter turned into a series of coughing and she groaned as the sweet sickening taste settled on her tongue.

It had slowly begun to dawn on her, that this was what had happened to Mr. Overland. What the fairy from the attic had planned to do to her when it had reached for her eye.

Her bloody hand searched down towards North's ring and she felt tears rolling down her cheeks. Prayed that Aster and Jamie would get out of this alive with Jack.

Prayed that she would meet North and Sandy again on the other side.

Prayed that she would get a quick death. That she wouldn’t become a fearling.

As the messengers of death, the snow slowly began to darken around her and hundreds of white eyes appeared in its void. An ominous chant of whispering voices filled the night and dragged her from reality into an ink-ish nightmare.

Tooth sniffled and seized his camera with a combative scowl.

"You monsters," she growled grimly and pressed the button. Nothing happened.

She felt her heart miss a beat and pushed again. The flash remained dead and she pounded on the camera with hiccupping breath while fearlings slowly crept toward her. Tooth pushed herself further into the corner and fumbled with the camera to make it work.

It blinked back to life as she beat it against the wall and she flashed the nearest shadows and kicked the next. Puller her feet to her to get out of their reach.

She twisted as a tall shadow emerged, loomed over her with a sonorous murmur. She lifted the camera, ready to blind it and take the next who dared to come close, but forgot all about pressing the button when she recognized the fearling.

She dropped the camera in shock.

North’s black shadow form looked down on her eyes of dead light and she pushed back against the cold wall, shook her head in denial with a sob.

"No, no, not you North ... please _no_ ... oh god ..."

Her world slowly began to fall apart as North was joined by Sandy. Tooth broke down in tears at the macabre reunion and lost herself to her hysteria. It wasn’t fair, they were supposed to meet again on the other side, far away from this nightmare, far away from the wicked world.

Not like this, never like this.

“North…Sa-Sandy, it’s me… _please!_ ”

The two fearlings barred their black teeth as an answer and hundreds of hands shot forwards. She writhed with a scream and slammed her hands up to cover her eyes.

Her screams were drowned as the shadows covered her.

-

Aster shivered as he caught the sound of Tooth's horrific screams and blinked the tears from his eyes.

Forced himself to focus on the road ahead and take the chance she had given them. Jamie whimpered besides him and groaned tormented. His face had gained the same pallid color as the dirty snow and every step sent bolt of white pain through his ankle and ribs.

They had put most of the shadows behind them, but could still hear their whisper and murmuring persecute them somewhere behind them.

Aster peered around them to get an indication of whether they were still on track or not and tried to keep a straight direction, despite the many trunks and fallen trees that lay in their way.

He noticed how Jamie became heavier and heavier, knew the teen was just a hair's length from fainting or worse.

Aster didn’t know if the teen had internal bleeding, could only hope he was dealing with a sprained ankle and maybe a bent rib. But if Jamie’s wan face was anything to judge, it was hardly the case.

"Aster, please," Jamie whispered for the fourth time since they parted from Tooth, but Aster wouldn’t listen to him. He be damned before he did. He wouldn’t leave Jamie; the kid wouldn’t have a snowball's chance in hell on his own.

“Just leave me…”

“ _Bloody hell_ , just shut it will ya?” Aster hissed out between gritted teeth and forced him forward. He stopped by the sight of another piece of cloth in the snow and quickly moved to lean Jamie and the swords he used as a crutch against a tree to investigate.

He recognized it as one of Jack's white t-shits, though this was far from white anymore. Jack had to be bare-chested now that they had found the T-shirt. It wasn’t warm like the hoodie, but still wet rather than frozen solid.

Aster threw the bloody shirt aside and grabbed Jamie to lift him again, but he resisted and pushed Aster’s hands of him and fell limply down against the trunk again.

"Just go, go find Jack. We both know I can’t walk like this."

“I’m not gonna leave you to those monsters, like some easy bait,” he scowled and seized Jamie. Ignored his protests and tried to force him to his feet. Jamie screamed in pain and Aster had to let him lean against the tree again.

Aster bit his lip and looked around for a solution.

Jamie was right, of course. Where they were going, Jamie would only be a burden to Aster. Simple death weight. He couldn’t face Pitch and rescue Jack if he had to carry Jamie and keep him out of danger to.

But if he left him here Jamie would be ripped to shreds.

He couldn’t bring him with him, but he couldn’t let him lie out here in the open either. Time was ticking and Aster knew it was only a matter of seconds before the first fearlings was upon them. He had to act now.

Jamie protested weakly as Aster lifted him up bridalstyle and tried to push him away. Aster ignored his weak attempts and found what he had been searching for.

A hollow trunk.

He helped Jamie as far into the trunk as he could and began to cover the entrance with snow, making sure that no outsider would spot him. He hoped at least. He looked around one last time and bowed down besides the little hole in the snow entrance for Jamie to hear him.

"Stay here. I'll go find Jack and meet ya back here. And if... if I don’t make it back before sunset, just get the hell outta here, Jamie. Ya heare me, mate?"

Jamie hummed as an answer and Aster caught a glimpse of his hooded eyes and shaking shoulders. The sight reminded him of Jack and he patted Jamie's brown locks one last time before he covered the entrance up with snow and ran off.

Jamie heard him run through the heavy snow and tried to control his breath, making sure he wouldn’t reveal himself. The sound of mumbling and whispering soon appeared and he pressed himself against the trunk sides.

His legs were almost numb from the cold by now and subdued the pain in his ankle, but his ribs still burned just beneath the skin and forced out a little scream of pain every time he moved or breathed too deeply.

From what he could sense just outside the end of the trunk, he caught countless black forms as they crossed right past his hiding place and he contained his breath in mute horror.

The only weapon he had on him was a flashlight and one of Tooth’s swords. The other he had dropped or lost to the shadows, as his body gave up on him and stole his determination to fight.

Jamie closed his eyes, tried to tell himself that all this was just a bad dream, a dream he could wake up from any minute now and dismiss as pure fabrication along with all the terror of the night.

Wanted to believe that he would wake up in his own bed with Abby lying in the foot of the bed, while the sound of his mother in the kitchen would reach him with the smell of coffee. That he could go to work and stand behind the counter in the gas station, while his friends texted him over the phone.

That he still had friends and a home to go home to.

Whispers and murmuring voices began to slowly approach the trunk and Jamie clutching the flashlight and sword to his chest. He wasn’t brave like Tooth or strong like Aster. Felt no solace or comfort from the idea of dying in the name of justice or fight to the bitter end without fear in his heart.

Jamie was scared, more scared than he had been in his entire life. He was no hero, he was only fear. He shivered as claws ran across the tree trunks bark and a prayer flowed from his lips as the fearlings began to remove the snow in front the trunk's opening.

Jamie heard his heart beating like a cannon in his ear and his heart flutter like the wings of a trapped bird. A black claw broke out of the snow and began to reach into his hideout slowly.

Jamie pushed back as far as he could and fumbled desperately with the flashlight. The claw suddenly shot forward and grabbed his hair. He screamed as it pulled and dragged him out from his hiding.

His ribs pushed against his lungs like knives and he curled up in the fetal position in pain, lost his grip on the sword and could only watch as it remained inside the trunk. Couldn’t breathe.

The shadows above him reached down towards him and he trembled as their bodies shut the moonlight out and darkness became his whole world. He screamed as they grabbed him and struck out against them with the flashlight.

A beam of white light bathed Jamie in a blinding sheen and the shadows pulled away in screams.

Jamie squinted and slowly raised a hand up in front of his eyes. The shadows around him ran for their lives and Jamie looked up into the light, where the sound of a resounding machine working at full speed resched down to him.

Jamie lay back down on the snow and stared into the sea of light.

It was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

-

The snow crunched under Aster's heavy boots and he hugged his arms tightly against his thin sweater. He could still hear the fearlings behind him, although it could be the howl of the wind for all he knew.

He kept asking himself if the hideout he had left Jamie in had been good enough and doubted his decisions. Hoped that he had done the right thing, made the right choice. That he hadn’t been responsible for yet another person's death.

He tried to remember back to the beginning and imagine ways in which he could have prevented the numerous accidents, while his brain continued to run in circles and force him into seeking urgencies, like shelter, warmth, rest and Jack.

Aster still didn’t know how he was going to cure Jack, if he even could and in this hell of winter, he had gradually questioning started to question himself whether still believed that Jack could be alive.

The bloody jackets and sweaters seems to testify major injuries and Aster could only imagine what a monster like Pitch could have done to Jack to get his back to bleed that way. Had he got tired of Jack? Wounded him lethal? Killed him by accident?

Aster shook his head to escape those images.

He hadn’t found any trail of blood on the snow yet, but feared to find a trace of red that would lead him to Jack's corpse. Lead him to a scene similar the one he and North had found, when they searched the forest after Sandy had been dragged into the darkness.

Aster didn’t know if he could remain sane after such a sight again. Didn’t know what he would do if he came across Jack lying cold and destroyed before his feet, surrounded by a pool of his own frozen blood.

Aster could only hope.

He had more expected it than feared it, when a lone figure awaited him in the snow. Jill stood alone without any shadows to guard her and her orange eyes followed him as he trudged forward.

He stopped a meter away from her and returned her gaze. Waited for the attack that was bound to come. He blinked in surprise when Jill simply stepped aside for him. Gave him free entry to continue forward.

"Why?" he asked, and she looked away.

“Just take what you came for, before the prince sees you and leave. Don’t ever come back here.”

She had tried to sound threatening at the last part, but Aster had heard the husky undertone in her voice and nodded gratefully. There were dark tears in her downcast eyes as he patted her head and continued his journey.

He didn’t look back and instinctively knew that this would be the last time he saw little Jill Overland.

He could only hope that one day she would find peace.

The trees began to thin out and he understood that he would soon get across a clearing or other natural opening in the forest. He slowed down hesitantly when a white shimmering glow appeared behind the last trees and raised his nail gun before he continued.

He stepped out between two old crooked trunks and locked eyes with the wide lonely forest lake in front of him. The moonlight reflected in it as a crystal mirror in the frozen ice that covered the lake's surface in a smooth layer and provided an effect of shining silver.

A beautiful sight to behold.

The tree's dark contours were reflected in the ice and the thousand stars above him flashed as was the lake the night sky, in a world where everything had been turned on its head or went two ways. 

Aster sought over the lake to find the safest way across the ice and then he saw him.

Aster dropped his nail gun.

A young man stood in the middle of the ice. He was naked except for a pair of dark jeans and shone as white as new-fallen snow. His white hair tresses rose slightly in the cold night wind and his lean arms seem to reach up and his hands caress it.

The pale teen was turned half towards him and Aster’s eyes darted from the white hair to the two large red wounds on his back. Two large wings emanated from his shoulder blades and caused the bleeding that still dripped silently in thin red lines from the end of the wings.

They were long and transparent as a dragonfly’s and studded with framed panels of blue and ice patterns in silver. They fluttered swiftly and gleamed in the pale moonlight.

Aster could only stare, enchanted and bewitched in his frozen state. It took him more than a minute to remember how to talk again.

“Jack.”

The winter changeling stopped his play with the wind and turned towards him slowly. Aster lost his breath as Jack's face turned to him and he was met with two eyes as blue and piercing as the Antarctic ice.

Jack's black eyebrows curled in recognition and he took a precarious step towards him.

The only warning he got was a loud groan from the ice before it opened and pulled Jack down into its cold deep.

"NO!" Aster screamed and ran over the ice. He heard the creak and crack under his boots, but had only eyes for the hole Jack had broken through and slid the last stretch on his hip before he plunged under.

The dark deep was cold in a way he had never known cold before.

Aster felt how the muscles around his lungs and heart went into spasm and tried to force the air out of him. He shook convulsively and clung stubbornly on to his breath, as all feeling in his hands and feet disappeared completely.

He turned around in a somersault, pressed his feet against the ice above him and set off to dive deeper into the darkness.

The Moon's light penetrated through the ice surface in pale rays and transformed the lake into a world of alternating dark and shadows, with the bottom as its black bottomless depth that threatened to swallow him whole.

Jack's pale body stood out of the dark like a pearl encased in black silk and decline steadily towards the darkness. Aster swam toward him with the water's woolen silence filling his ear and coldness pressed against his eyes.

Jack's own eyes were closed and remained such as Aster grabbed him by the waist and started kicking his legs. With Jack in tow the ascent became twice as hard and Aster soon began to struggle as his lungs began to burn and the pressure on his eyes increased.

The hole above them seem so close and still so far away and panic gripped him when he felt how they fell instead of rising towards the surface. Aster tried to speed up and felt a bit of propulsion.

His legs began to feel heavy as lead and the chill had reached him to the marrow, if not the soul. The moon’s pale disc rocked and sloshed right over him as the symbol of life and Aster sought towards it with everything he had in him and tried to grab for it.

His fingertips bumped into the cold ice and he lost half of his oxygen as he exerted himself to grabs hold of the ice edge. Aster gasped and coughed when his head finally reached the surface, swallow as much precious air as he could.

He sputtered and coughed as he pulled Jack after him and began to climb up on the ice. His whole body shook uncontrollably from the cold and his teeth chattering rowdy in his head.

He grunted strained as he lifted Jack from the water and began to pull him up on the safer part of the ice. Jack was like a cold wax doll between his hands and Aster pressed his ear against his chest.

Listened to his heart.

A weak but persistent heartbeat reached him and he laid his hands around Jack's face.

"Jack! Mate, wake up – Jack ya gotta come back to me, ya gotta ... "

He started giving Jack CPR and had reached the tenth push when a cold hand reached up to lay down over his own two. Aster gasped with relief and hugged Jack's hand. Unlike Aster’s shaking ones, Jack's hand was perfectly still, but there was no warmth to find under the skin.

No heat or steam rose from Jack's pale lips and when he opened his lidded eyes, his blue orbs was dull and lifeless.

“You came back for me.”

“Of course, I did,” Aster whispered with trembling lips and helped Jack so that he could rest his head against Aster's shaking chest. Jack smiled and the light shone in ice that had strated to cover his body.

Small frozen beads hung from his black eyelashes and Aster felt his heart dropped by the sight. Jack slowly began to tremble as well and his wings fluttered weakly. His breath became weaker and Aster pressed him against him, tried to hold him close without harming him.

A light stream of black blood had slowly begun to gather under them and reflected in the ice, where his wounds were depicted in all its cruelty.

“What’s happening?” Aster asked quivering and Jack blinked tired.

“I’ve used up all my life energy. I’ve drained everything I had and lost my magic. The storms, the snow, the ice...that was all me, Aster. I did those things, I didn’t mean to, but I couldn’t keep it in….it’s all my fault and now I’m paying the price.”

“Don’t,” Aster warned and hugged him closer, “don’t ever apologies. Not for this, not for anything. Don’t you ever tell me to ask ya for forgiveness again, Jack.”

He felt how tears gathered in his eyes and Jack pressed his face against his chest, clutched his hand and tried to become one with him while the blood trickled down his back.

Aster let him in, tried to give him his fledgling warmth.

“It’s me who should be sorry. If I had just trusted ya and been there for you, this would never had happened. I was the one who let ya come here, who wanted to argue and send ya out on your own. I was supposed to be there for ya and help you though this place and I didn’t. I didn’t and I can never take it back. Please forgive me.”

Jack was shaking and the tears froze on his cheeks, “I don’t wanna die, Aster. I don’t want this to be the end of us.”

“This isn’t the end, mate” Aster whispered, trying to find a convincing voice, “I promised to take ya fare away from here, remember? That we would get old and tanned together on a sheep ranch and live in the sun. Take ya to Australia, ya remember that promise, right?”

“Australia?” Jack repeated weakly and Aster pulled him into his lap, rocked him quietly and pressed his face against his. Jack lifted a shaking hand to his cheek and almost seem to see right through him with the ice blue eyes of his. Stared right into his soul.

“Promise you’ll take me there?”

“Promise,” he said and placed his hands against his.

“Do you promise to protect me and watch over me as long as you live? That you will always repay my love for you tenfold, until the day you draw your last breath and remain by my side in spring, summer, autumn and winter? That you will be my heartbeat and soul, draw every breath for me and be my shield in the sun?”

Aster kissed him gently, “I promise.”

Jack closed his eyes and his wings beat one last time in the puddle of blood. Aster pressed his face against his and hugged him close. The silence of the deep woods fell lightly around them and Aster remained as he was. He had promised to remain by Jack's side.

He would stay, he had promised.

He had lost the feeling of his legs when a small cloud of steam touched his cheek. He opened his eyes, regarded Jack's unmoving face and waited for darkness to claim him, when yet another small cloud met his cheek.

Warmed him for a second.

Aster blinked the ice out of his eyes and stared for a time that felt like eternity, before his chilled brain came to realize that the little breath of clods came from Jack's mouth.

The two dragonfly wings stirred for a second, before they slowly began to pull and folded into themselves. As a flower closing its petals after sunset, they dwindled and retreated into Jack's back.

The wounds closed themselves layer by layer and the bleeding stopped. A slight redness emerged across the pale limbs and Aster’s eyes widened as a blush began to spread through Jack's skin.

The white color withdrew from him as a smoke and the skin blossomed with life. A dark tone spread through Jack's scalp and soon spread the brown color out through the hairs and made his tresses dark again.

Aster lost the breath he didn’t know he had held as Jack finally opened his eyes. Two dark hazel eyes stared up at his gray ones and Aster broke into a choked grin.

“I love you,” he sobbed and hugged Jack close enough to break every bone in his body. Jack buried his face in his hair.

“I know.”

They both stared up as a flapping sound broke the night's tranquil silence and made them aware of the dawning sun in the horizon. Two rescue helicopters broke through the darkness of the forest and a beam of light blinded them with its white light.

Aster noted that Jack wasn’t burned by the light and only appeared bothered by its strength on a human level. He almost cried from happiness.

It became a confusion of people as the two helicopters landed and the paramedics came out to get them on the ice. Aster tried to explain, but could only stutter with chattering teeth and tried to answer as many questions as possible, but the paramedics would have none of that in his condition.

They were quickly wrapped in thermoprinting blankets and down on each stretcher for further care. Aster felt how fatigue and exhaustion finally broke out to the surface, made him heavy with sleep.

He sighed with relief when he saw a stretcher with a safe and sound Jamie Bennet asleep on top of it inside the helicopter.

Jack's stretcher was wheeled in next to his and Jack turned his weary head toward Aster's with a little smile. Aster took his hand despite the IV and kept watching Jack till sleep overpowered him. Jack sighed and turned his head the other way, caught his own reflection in one of the shiny surfaces.

Onyx face smiled mockingly in return and she pinched one of her cheeks in satisfaction. The glamor was working perfectly and the protection spell was flawless. As long as this human lived, he would be her life-force and keep Pitch's magic from burning her in the light.

She pursed her new lips and played a bit with one of the brown locks.

Australia ... there had to be woodlands there.

New territory for the clan ...

  

  **Epilogue**

The sun's rays warmed the old pickups hood and the summer heat called the many insects and birds out from their hideouts to romp in its tranquil atmosphere.

Jamie sat alone and silent on the car and let the world pass by him. His phone buzzed beside him and made vibrations on the hood, but Jamie paid it no mind, he had only eyes for the forest in front of him.

Even in the bright morning it seemed gloomy and sinister, with its moody shadows and crooked trees that had seen more than any living man.

The last half-year's events rolled over him like a faint dream, while his greyhound Abby ran around in the dry grass, chasing small birds and rabbits with her tongue hanging out of her mouth.

Jamie sighed and straightened his cap to give some air to his sweaty neck.

His mother and several of the elders from the village had been arrested after he, Aster and Jack had testified against them last winter. Jamie had been detained in Virginia Hospital Center, to heal his three broken ribs and ankle, while Jack and Aster had been declared healthy enough to go back to Burgess.

Both Jamie and Aster had feared the doctors would find something strange about Jack during the blood samples or tests, but no one had seemed to find anything odd or remarkable about Jack and let him go without further remarks.

Jamie continued as a witness after his mother was taken in for further investigation, but Jamie knew it wouldn’t lead to anything in the end. Things out here always got bottled up, hidden away from prying eyes, and forgotten just as fast.

Up here it was almost a law of nature.

The elders had been released after only a few days of investigation and the case was closed due to "insufficient evidence" and "lack of useful witness statements." Jamie could only watch from the sideline with a bitter taste in the mouth and had avoided the village like the plague ever since.

You didn’t have to be a genius to figure out you didn’t exactly get popular by getting grannies arrested.

The only consolation he could still feel good about, was the fact that his mother had been remanded in custody because of murder. She had shot after the police officers who had tried to arrest her and even though there was nothing to gain in the larger case, she couldn’t go unpunished after shooting a policeman in the head.

Jamie had been able to stay alone in the house by himself for few months, but it wouldn’t last forever. His mother hadn’t been sentenced to life in prison or the death row, but a mental institution, which meant she still had a chance of getting out some day.

Even if she didn’t get out and back into the mess that was his life, everything would still return to the same with time. Like it was meant to. Everything out here had its way of returning to the same as always.

But not Jamie.

After what he has seen and borne witness to, he would never be the same again.

The mobile buzzed again and he finally lifted it without a word. It was a message from Aster. He opened the message, where a picture popped up. Aster and Jack both smiled broadly from a white sandy beach.

Both tanned and hand in hand. Happy.

He read the text and smiled sadly. Aster had invited him to Australia and offered to pay his ticket. Jamie closed the phone and put it back into his pocket. Asked himself again and again whether he should tell Aster the truth.

But what good would it do? What good would it do to tell Aster he lived with a disguised changeling?

Jamie got a lump in his throat and remembered how he had rolled into Jack and Aster’s room in his wheelchair back at the hospital and been ready to knock on the door to see if Jack and Aster was asleep, when he had caught a glimpse of Jack through the crack.

Jack had sat in the windowsill and stared out into the night.

A serene expression had laid on his face and his brown eyes had seemed almost supernatural. Jack had looked up at the moon and turned to his reflection with a slight smile. Jamie had had to cover his mouth not to let out the gasp that had nearly escaped him, revealing he had been prying.

A woman with a black and white lined face had stared back at Jack and they had smiled in unison.

Jamie shivered by the memory and asked himself again and again whether he should have warned Aster. Told him that he was forever bound to a changeling by a fae contract. Told him the truth and broken his heart.

Jamie hadn’t had the heart to do it.

He had always been a coward. It was also the reason why he fled now. Behind him in the car were boxes and bags packed and ready for the journey. Jamie had finally made a decision and prepared for leaving.

He had decided to leave this place forever and put it behind him as far as possible.

He would never forget what had happened here, but he could at least allow himself to move on instead of staying and be forced to remember it every day. He wanted to go somewhere without forests, a place where people were not identical and the children did not fear the darkness of the woods.

He laid a hand on his bag where his books about the supernatural rested. He had found a team over the internet that had planned to go to Alaska and search for Bigfoot and Jamie had agreed to meet them half way in the next city.

It was settled, there was nothing holding him back anymore.

He was finally leaving.

He nodded to himself and jumped down from the hood. Opened the door to the front seat and whistled for the greyhound.

Abby came sprinting towards him and he cuddled the narrow head with a small smile. Glad that he at least had one good memory of this place where he grew up and kissed the dog's snout. The dog licked his face and jumped to get into the passenger seat.

Jamie opened the door for her and made ready to drive when the dog suddenly began to growl.

Jamie followed the dog's gaze and saw her.

A little lone shadow stood at the edge of the forest. She remained in the forest shade and avoided the sun's light, just looked at him from her safe darkness.

They looked at each other for a while without any of them moving and Jamie heard Abby barking next to him. The small shadow raised a hand and waved to him.

He didn’t wave back.

Without taking his eyes off her, he slammed the door to the car shut and started the engine. He turned the car away from the forest and steered it toward the main road that would lead him out of the area.

The small shadow began to run after him along the forest border and follow him as far as she could. Jamie kept watching her in the rearview mirror and saw her stopped at the last bit of the forest.

Abby licked his hand with a whine and Jamie let go of Sophie with his eyes and focused on the road.

Turned his back on her and the rest of his childhood.

He had decided never to come back here, but in his heart, he knew this was untrue. There would come a day when Jamie Bennet would return to this place and when he did, he would be older, wiser, and prepared.

Vengeance would call him home and Jamie forced that knowledge aside, pushed it away and exiled it to the place in his mind where oblivion lived. Right now, he just wanted to forget. He just wanted to live.

Sophie looked after the car and stared after her brother until the last trace of his existence had disappeared with the car’s dust cloud. She began to whisper a song their mother would sing to them before they would go to sleep and returned to the forest.

The shadows danced in a tranquil woodland and she jumped easy and fleetingly above the many roots and tree trunks like a bird. Songs from the heart of the forest called her as a siren melody and she mingled with the many fearlings and nightmare-men that romped among the trees and the forest's dark realm.

Deep within the woods where the sun does not grace, further into the ancient trees that seemed to stretch father and wider than any known sort to man, the underbrush stretch far into the fog.

A fog as thick and dim, guarded the veil that shielded the entrance to the hedge – a thorny unmerciful land of living swamp and vegetation that lived by its own rules and own personal moral.

Deeper into the jungle of green horrors and past clearings of hungry hidden mouths, the hedge thinned and the membrane of magic thickened into its many realms. One of them lead deeper into a hollow and the final edge, Acadia. The realm of Fae.

In the dim moonlight of the land that never saw the light of the sun, a palace rose to touch the sky of a million dancing stars. A palace of living shadows, numerous chambers and halls of black stalactites roomed in all its mysterious beauty.

In a chamber in the center of the palace, a voices seeped out through the muted network of black and dark curtains of spider web.

Pitch’s hush voice faded between the chamber walls and whispered sweet nothings into Jack’s ear. Jack moaned and stretched his neck, offered free access for Pitch to bite and do as he pleased. Jack forced himself to breath as the ministration continued.

Dragging him deeper into the darkness that had become his world, until summer would end and falls awaken. He arched his back in a silent scream as Pitch continued the steady strokes and Jack crumbled in a sigh of pleasure.

Grabbed fistful of black silk and moss under his fingertips. Feeling Pitch soft hair tickling his ear. Pitch crackled into his ear and pressed his legs apart, exposed him and keep him in place.

Jack didn’t mind, allowed it to happen and felt how the sensation drowned him completely. Both Pitch hands dragged down his body as light wind and stopped at his knees. Pulled them farther apart.

Jack tensed out of habit and Pitch growled warningly, making Jack whimper from the vibration against his throat. His thought of old forgotten protests and ideas of escaping became shattered as ice, at the feeling of Pitch burning tongue.

A pattern of trails began to run down his body slowly, starting at his jaw, down his neck, his chest and stomach. Jack moaned and arched even more to overcome the raw pleasure that was building up. Felling the fire in his guts building up.

The darkness that surrounded him seemed almost alive and writhed and twisted in pace with him. Jack barely registered how ice patterns formed beneath his body and spread through the dark chamber. Decorated the darkness like a web.

Pitch dragged his sharp nails across the ice that had formed on Jack's thighs and the winter fairy uttered a high-pitched keen from the back of his throat, digged his nails into the soft ground and clenched his fist.

Pitch smiled by that and continued down until he trailed the teen's length.

Jack closed his eyes and heard how his own breath became labored as the hot tongue teased him and reached the head of his member. Pitched continued his teasing, probably punishing him for when he had tried to deny him accesses before.

Jack's wings fluttered desperately and reflected the light from the glowing worms and fireflies above them. Shone and deflected Jack's white skin as the only real source of light in the dark ground of Pitch's realm.

Pitch lips continued to wander and neglecting the only place Jack wished to be heated. He whimpered desperate when the tongue disappeared and tried to chase the heat with his hips, getting a friction that could relive him from this sweet pain.

Pitch keep him in place with his hands, kept him from moving around and squeezed his thighs in understanding reassurance.

Knowing exactly what he was doing to the winter fairy.

Jack sighed pleased when lips pressed to his length again, moved to the tip and wrapped around his cock fully. The heat pressed around it and Jack tried to move again, only to feel Pitch’s hands tightening and dig his long nails into his pale skin.

The mix of pain and pleasure almost forced him over the edge, but Pitch keep him on the ground, as he started to move up and down. Jack opened his icy eyes, watched his prince and lover between his thighs and buried his hand in the black tresses.

Pitch’s wings fluttered by the sensation of Jack’s fingers and the great black wings spread wider, swallowed the darkness and framed it with its golden outline. Jack stared himself blindly in them, allowed himself to stretch his own wings and led his head drop back as Pitch tongue drove him to madness.

Drove him over the edge.

Pitch released him and crept up to cover his body once again with his grey slender form. Jack meet him in a fight of lips and tasted his own arousal. Their tongues fought for a time, before Jack lost the fight for dominance and opened to give his prince full access.

Pitch hummed in satisfaction and bit his lip, tasted the almost watery blood, as translucent and clean as spring water from Antarctic.

“My little prince.”

Jack shook by those possessive words and stared up pass Pitch. He thought of the world that awaited behind the realm's thick lair of dirt, stone, and grass. Thought of the clear sky and how it soon would be graced by a new moon.

The whispers and songs of the night and wonders called to him in sweet harmony and begged him to come dance in the pale light from the stars. About the dark faelings, shadows and nightmare-men that danced between the luminescent mushrooms and formed rings in the deeps of the forest.

About the changelings who bowed and lived to serve his every wish and thrive is his presence and cold light.

Jack had a faint memory of a time before all that.

A time in a light as warm as Pitch desire and blinding as the light that reached them from the human village. There was a face in that light, a human with pale grey eyes and sandy hair. A man with a warm laughter and sweet scowl. A man of spring.

_Aster…_

Jack closed his eyes and forced himself to forget, erase the human from his mind. It was just a hurtful dream. He didn’t want to dwell on it or the betray Aster had done. Jack didn’t need Pitch's words to know that Aster had left him.

Jack knew what he was, why he could never be with a mere human. Human’s lives were a fragile and short as a season and he would outlast Aster as simple as a blink of the eye. But his ones’ beloved had still been the one to leave him.

Left him behind and forgotten about him, as humans seemed to do best.

Jack had cried bitter tears and accused Pitch of lying to him when he claimed that Aster had forgotten about him. But as the seasons past, even Jack would have to acknowledge the truth. 

Aster hadn’t come for him. He hadn’t tried to save him.

Even though he no longer wanted or felt the need to be saved or removed from this place, the sorrow that trailed the deep betrayal was a sharp as the iron knives the humans armed themselves with.

It hurt and the pain dug deeper than he could endure. Pitch found his lips and deepened the kiss. Jack felt his heart dull and focused on the present. On his life by Pitch Black’s side and the sound of Jill’s sweet laughter when he danced with her in the middle of the storms.

She was a shift as a bird and trusting as any child of his and he couldn’t nothing but love her.

He would often watch her play with the fearlings and see her run with the four fearlings she held most dear. A little lonesome girl with fake wings on her back, a small man with spiky hair and a tall framed man who seemed to be inseparable with a slender dark woman as hectic and skittish as a hummingbird.

Jack had no interest in the fearlings, they were only empty shells of the humans he had ones loved and hoping to find some trace of them their new forms was just as useless, as it was foolish. They were now nothing more than mindless servants of Pitch’s and simple shadows laced with magic.

A magic that reflected his own and created a pattern of white and black. Cold and dark. Jack felt his own magic grew for every day and his powers evolve in pace with his acceptance. 

He closed his eyes, tired of fighting and hid his face in Pitch's neck. Surrendered to the prince of the forest.

Pitch felt how the winter-changeling cracked and offered himself completely. He smiled and pressed a gentle kiss to Jack’s temple.

“My little light.”

**Whose woods these are I think I know.**

**His house is in the village though;**

**He will not see me stopping here**

**To watch his woods fill up with snow.**

  

**My little horse must think it queer**

**To stop without a farmhouse near**

**Between the woods and frozen lake**

**The darkest evening of the year.**

  

**He gives his harness bells a shake**

**To ask if there is some mistake.**

**The only other sound’s the sweep**

**Of easy wind and downy flake.**

  
 

**The woods are lovely, dark and deep,**

**But I have promises to keep,**

**And miles to go before I sleep,**

**And miles to go before I sleep…**

Robert Frost

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by the horror movie "The Hallow" (2015)  
> I will update a chapter every friday


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